Student loan debt: How I got in deep

My mother was quadriplegic by the time I was in high school. My dad was a real estate agent who worked on commission, so he worked long hours to make ends meet. As a result, I took on a lot of responsibility at a young age.

I cooked and cleaned and did all the grocery shopping. I did the laundry and paid the bills (in the “balancing the checkbook and writing the checks” sense, not the earning money sense). I took my mother to the bathroom, fed her, and tracked her pill regimen. And most importantly, I believed that a college education was a good value.

I knew my parents couldn’t afford to send me to college, and I wasn’t allowed to have a job because of my responsibilities at home. So in lieu of saving for college, I threw myself into everything school had to offer.

I was salutatorian. I was on the dance team and the academic team. I was secretary of the service club and president of the math club. And it worked: not only did I get out, I graduated from college with a 4.0. Then I went on to get an MA and a PhD. Unfortunately, I got $100K in debt to go along with it.

I mention this only because it begs the question: what leads a (relatively) smart person to make almost ten years’ worth of poor financial decisions? As immoral as universities may be, there’s more to any individual’s decisions than external influence.

Undergrad: An auspicious beginning?

When she was young and healthy, my mother had a full ride to Boston University. She dropped out because she wasn’t doing well in her pre-med classes; what she really enjoyed was writing. I remember asking her, “Why didn’t you just change your major?” She said it never occurred to her.

She eventually did get an Associate’s degree from the local community college. However, she always regretted not completing a Bachelor’s degree. Her experience led her to believe that the best degree was the one that you finished. She also believed that if you picked something you enjoyed, you were more likely to do well and be happy.

When I started thinking about college, my dad said “smart people major in business.” He suggested, “not that I’m telling you to follow in my footsteps, but female real estate agents make a lot of money.” My mom would nod sagely at his advice. Then after he left the room, she would stage-whisper, “do whatever makes you happy!”

I attended a state school, since the Florida Bright Futures lottery scholarship paid for 100% of my tuition and a book allowance. I was a National Merit Finalist. I received Pell grants and a variety of other scholarships. Since my education was paid for regardless of major, I followed my mom’s advice and did what made me happy. I was a creative writing major and a psychology minor. I worked as a server and a tutor at the writing center. As a result, I graduated with no debt.

Grad school: The downward spiral begins

I was intimidated by the thought of graduating and getting a “real job.” Instead, I decided to keep doing what I had always been successful at: school. I started an MA in creative writing. I also worked on campus 35 hours a week, teaching and tutoring. However, graduate tuition was expensive. Luckily, Stafford was there to fill the hole. I knew it was a loan, but I’d never borrowed any money before. I didn’t have a concept of what borrowing really meant in terms of paying it back.

During this time I loved my job so much that I decided I wanted to run a writing center. My boss had a PhD in rhetoric and composition. I researched programs, applied to three, and accepted an offer from a top five program. It entailed moving across the country, which I couldn’t afford; I wouldn’t get financial aid until fall. Enter credit card debt.

The cost of living in my new city was also much higher. Again, Stafford and Visa filled the hole (though there were still a couple of weeks between moving and financial aid kicking in where I didn’t wash my hair because I couldn’t afford shampoo).

Yes, I was taking out more loans. But I was only making $14,000 a year and my paychecks were $750 apiece. The average starting salary of $50,000 was three and a half times what I was making. That could only mean my paychecks would be three and a half times bigger. Right?

Somehow the fact that this $14,000 was spread over nine months instead of twelve didn’t seem significant. Taxes and payroll deductions for things like health insurance weren’t even on my radar. I also don’t recall a single time when I saw a total of how much I’d borrowed until my degree was almost complete.

Graduation approaches: I’m in over my head

Even when I saw my total of about $100,000, it was poor math all the way. I thought, Okay, I was in grad school for eight years. That means I borrowed an average of $12,500 per year. I was also making $14,000 per year during that time, so my average income was $26,500 per year. But soon I’ll be making $50,000. That’s twice as much! This is no problem.

My program also claimed it had a 100% tenure-track job placement rate. It didn’t occur to me that this couldn’t be possible until after I was advanced to candidacy and took a job search class. Then, this statistic was amended to “100% of students who wanted to be on the tenure track ended up with tenure-track jobs.” Who doesn’t want tenure?! I thought. This won’t be me. This is no problem.

I did know, of course, that getting a PhD in the humanities wasn’t going to make me rich (although the professors in my program all had 3000+ square foot homes in the nicest area of town). But it was more important to be happy than to be rich. Besides, I grew up poor. I was familiar with it. It didn’t sound scary.

Then I went on the job market. My hottest lead turned out to be in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and I had a few realizations. I didn’t want to live 200 miles from the nearest urban center. Not only that, I couldn’t even if I wanted to: Jake and I had been dating for over a year. Our relationship was getting serious enough that he needed to be a factor in my plans.

By this time he’d graduated from law school and had a job making $90,000 per year. He was traumatized from the bar exam. The thought of taking another one only a year later gave him cold sweats. Even if he was willing to do it, he couldn’t afford to make much less. A salary of $90,000 a year would be impossible to come by in a tiny rural town. Now my job search was what they called Geographically Restricted. That’s academic speak for “it’s your own fault if you don’t end up on the tenure track.”

Suddenly, unexpectedly

So I moved to Jake’s city and geared up for another year on the job market. I got a full-time administrative position in summer 2008, right before the economy tanked. The week after they hired me, my institution implemented a hiring freeze. Six months later, they instituted furlough.

I combed the national job lists in my field, but I was Geographically Restricted. Even if I wasn’t, it was one of the worst job markets in memory (and memory didn’t have a lot of good years anyway). And then, there was the unexpected — though, given that I think I’m psychologically predisposed to happiness, maybe I should have expected it.

It turns out I LOVE my job. I love the work I do and the people I work with. I love the city I live in (even if it’s 109 degrees outside right now). I have family in the area. Jake grew up here. At this point, he has over five years of business connections here, and I have four.

At some point, the the life I was living “for now” had become The Life I Want to Live. I have a ten minute commute. I leave work at 5 p.m. every day and don’t need to think about it until the next morning. I don’t check email during my off hours. I don’t work in the evenings. I have pets, I am a hobby chef, I read novels. I think I would have enjoyed the tenure track, but I don’t need it to be happy.

What about you?

This is my story. This is only my story. I cannot speak for others with student loan debt. But I know many, many people with high student loan debt (including lots of folks with totals higher than mine). So I know you’re out there, fellow student loan debtors!

Let’s build on last week’s discussion (go check out the comments there as well!). What’s your situation? How is it different than mine? How is it similar? I am especially interested in:

Your total student loan debt

What degree(s) you have

When you went to school

Whether anyone talked to you about student debt or the job prospects in your field

Whether the information you received about student loan debt or the job prospects in your field was accurate

What you wish you had done differently/advice for others

How you’re dealing with your debt

There are obviously many decisions I could have made differently. It’s undeniable. But since I can’t go back in time and make different decisions, I’m declaring a statute of limitations on regret. Plus, I’m taking responsibility for my errors in judgment and paying the loans back. I have to, since you can’t discharge student debt in bankruptcy.

However, as Robert Brokamp pointed out, there are systemic problems with student debt in this country (check out this paper for some facts on six-figure student loan debt). Those of you who have been through the system, how would you change it?

Thanks for sharing your story so hopefully others think about their strategy before taking on tons of student loan debt. You have to have a plan to pay it off and make sure it is a good investment because if you’re taking out debt you better have a plan to pay it back.

I graduated with no loan debt as an accounting major but my girlfriend graduated with close to $80,000 in debt for her Nursing Bachelors degree. It stinks but she didn’t get any help from her family.

Since graduating about a year ago she has paid off over $15,000 in debt and we’re working aggressively to pay the rest off her debt as fast as possible. I think we’ll have it gone in 2 years because we have low living costs and can throw a lot against the debt.

I also graduated with an MS with little student loan debt. One reason for this was my choice of school after getting three similar offers (free tuition and 20k stipend) from top programs. When Berkeley sent me their offer, they included a financial aid application, as no student could afford to live on that money in the Bay Area. The other schools were just as highly rated in my field, but in much more affordable areas. I figured I’d eventually end up in the Bay Area, anyway (I did – immediately after graduation)…

My experience is at the other extreme: I also grew up poor, and the scar it left on me was that debt is not an option. Not because of fear of debt, but because of fear of rejection. I simply believed nobody would lend me money. No matter what. So I never could stand the thought of applying for a loan.

My mother fueled that and insisted my only way out was an education, and the only way to get an education was a scholarship. And the only way to get an education, was to get good grades. So I worked my tail off in high school and missed all the extra-curricular activities. The ultimate nerd. All for grades, and all because of fear.

But I got the scholarship and fear made me see it through when I thought of quitting. After graduation I went to work. After a few years, I did my MBA part time because by that time I was married and I didn’t want to lose momentum on my career track. Because I made good money at the time I didn’t need debt.

Being somewhat aggressive and very lucky paid off. We ended up with a windfall when the company I worked for got sold. So I picked a nice college in California, close to the beach, for my Ph.D. program.

I stayed out of student debt completely by sacrificing my high school years, doing my masters part time and not even thinking of the Ph.D. until we had money in the bank for it.

All because of fear. I’ve heard many people pontificate that fear is bad. I’m not so sure…

My story has many similarities to William..sacrificing my high school years, doing my B.S. and M.S part-time while working full-time. I finished my Master’s degree in 2009, and I’ve never had any student loan debt. No one talked to me about it; I feared everything about student loans, so avoided them. I knew grads from my program and all were employed if they wanted to be.

I read this post with a little bit of admiration, and a little bit of sadness for you. Not that you’ve asked for our pity (clearly you don’t regret your choices, which is also admirable), but I believe a lack of balanced advice was what initially led to your fear, which I think is really unfortunate.

It is entirely possible to graduate high school with honors, get those scholarships and still be on a sports team, drama club or choir – basically, not feel like you have to sacrifice the “carefree” days of your youth for the sake of fear.

I graduated in May 2008 with a BS in accounting and ~$60k in student loans. I had very little financial assistance from my parents but they said I was welcome to live at home while I repaid my loans. Not paying rent and eating my parents food allowed me to allocate most of my take home pay to loan repayment. I finishing paying off my student loans in December 2011 and have since moved out of my parents house.

I have a B.A. in Philosophy (really), an M.Ed in teaching English as a Second Language to Adults, and an M.A. in Translation — spread out over decades. I owe $86,000 in student loans.

I was the first person in my family to attend college (my father dropped out in 8th grade and my mother had a HS diploma). My parents insisted that I attend college so I could have a better life. They did not have any money to send me, so I took out loans.

As a kid I really wanted to learn a trade — carpentry or plumbing or something like that. I had NO idea what I was getting into — I really didn’t understand the concept of college — I had no points of reference as no one I’d ever known had attended. I didn’t understand the loans and I didn’t understand how to navigate any of the systems.

I loved college, though, (obviously, since I kept going back) and loved learning, and am really happy with my education. I work in human services earning a pittance (about $35k between my full-time and part-time jobs), and I love the work I do. Because I work in a non-profit, I am eligible for forgiveness of my loans after ten years of paying them, and I pay the Income Based Repayment plan — currently $123 per month. I think that’s a fair amount and I think the forgiveness plan is fair.

I guess I would like to see colleges/admissions offices do a better job of counseling people about what their student loans entail, but it’s so incomprehensible when you’re that young — the amount of debt people take on is really difficult to fathom.

It’s kind of like winning the lottery (in reverse) — we might daydream about what we’d do with a million dollars, but there’s no way to prepare for the actuality of that when your lived experience has been so different. And when you’ve just been a kid, living at home in a working class household, there’s really no way to understand what it’s going to mean to take on such a substantial amount of debt.

So, you chose to take on a debt nearly 2.5 times your future annual salary, and expect to have your personal obligation wiped clean after paying less than 20% of the principal amount, and none of the accrued interest?

I think I’ll have to disagree with your view that the forgiveness plan is fair, at least to those of us who will end up paying the rest of your bill.

Some of us think that we, as a society, benefit from the kind of work that people who have their loans forgiven are doing. It’s not about giving an individual a benefit; it’s about ensuring that bright, educated people can afford to do important work.

“Non-profit” can mean a lot of things, and a lot of Non-profits don’t do anything that I would say benefits society.

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Ramblin' Ma'amsays:

14 August 2012 at 8:01 am

I agree with this, although I do object to Anne calling her salary a “pittance,” when she earns about $10K more a year than the average American. And I say this as someone who makes about what she does, and lives in one of the most expensive cities in the country.

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Jennifersays:

14 August 2012 at 8:18 am

So because “some” of you think that it is a benefit to society, we should all be forced to pay?!? How about the “some” just voluntarily fund these people if it is so important to them?

And yes…this is me waving my Libertarian “Don’t Tread On Me” flag:-D

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Briansays:

14 August 2012 at 11:24 am

Katie,

I accept my responsibility to contribute towards the intangible, indirect benefits of society, but what is considered “important work” can be very subjective.

Does Anne’s education allow her to perform at a level with $103,000** greater value than she could perform without multiple Masters degrees? Maybe, in her case, it does, but that’s unlikely to be true every time. Would that amount have a better ROI to society if spent elsewhere?

I think that this makes it very easy skew the cost-to-benefit analysis of a degree program’s total cost, if that is even considered, by only looking at the individual student’s repayment amount and conveniently forgetting about the remainder that will be passed along.

** $86,000 in principal at the current subsidized student loan rate of 3.4% with 120 monthly payments of $123 creates a remaining balance around $103,300 for society to cover.

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Jimsays:

14 August 2012 at 8:05 am

I’d rather give it to Ann than to give it to foreign countries in the Middle East, give it for war, corrupt governments, corrupt corporations, welfare abusers, etc.

Our money goes to so much needless waste. Why not help our own that work hard to help themselves?

Hi Brian,
What I chose to do was attend college at my parents’ insistence. At 17 years old, I had no idea what I was getting into, what I would earn, or what the amount I would have to pay off would be.
God bless you and your parents who raised you if you had your whole life planned out at 17 and you knew what you’d be earning and doing for work at that tender age.
We’re not all as lucky and blessed with foresight and good counsel.

Amen, sister! I am taking the same route as you – loan forgiveness after 10 years. To all those who claim we’re spending their money for our bad decisions…I really hate the inflated prices I pay on consumer goods to pay your bloated salary. I know office jobs include a lot of sitting around (I’ve had them…all very well paid), so really, those expensive paper towels and bags of chips are just subsidizing “private sector” day long viewings of you-tube (is there really a private sector anymore?). You are deluded if you actually think you contribute more to society than teachers and non-profit workers. Sorry to insult anyone, but a few of those comments were really mean. And unthankful…trust me, we do a lot more work than a desk jockey!!

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Janesays:

15 August 2012 at 6:10 am

“And unthankful…trust me, we do a lot more work than a desk jockey!!”

If you have to resort to denigrating and caricaturing someone to make your point, it must not have been so strong in the first place.

You certainly contribute to society by being a teacher, but your self-righteous tone about how much work you do is quite a turn off.

Do you spend time socializing with other teachers? Or are you working ALL day. You might not be able to watch you-tube videos sometimes, since presumably you aren’t at a computer all day. But we all find ways to decompress at work. In fact, this helps us increase our productivity when we are actually working.

Sorry, I don’t worship at the altar of supposed self-sacrificial teachers and non-profit workers. You work. People in that office down the block work. The mom at home with her kids or the daughter who takes care of her elderly parent works. We all work.

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Ramblin' Ma'amsays:

15 August 2012 at 8:56 am

#208: Wow! So everyone in the public sector is noble and struggling, and everyone in the private sector is overpaid?

I am a “desk jockey,” and yes, I usually do have downtime in my day (or at least I can surf the Internet between taking calls and emails, like now). I have a lot of public school teachers in my life. They probably do work harder than me (for nine months of the year, at least). They ALL make more money, and I mean a lot more. And they’re guaranteed a pension, and oh yeah, they can’t be fired.

There are advantages and downsides to all jobs, but I have to say, some of the teachers I know have the worst martyr complexes I’ve ever seen.

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phoenix1929says:

15 August 2012 at 7:23 pm

@ Rambling Ma’am: I personally question how much information a person has when they assert they have a lot of friends as teachers who make a WHOLE lot more than they do. Starting salary is around $24K to the low $30s, depending on the State, with very little increases until they hit about 22 years. (Most teachers don’t last this long, so they can attract people with promosing high salaries at the end, knowing most won’t get there.) Yes, they work 9.5 months a year and are unpaid for the months that they don’t work.

You seem offended at the assertion that customers pay high prices to cover labor costs, which puzzles me. You pay for their salary through your taxes; they pay for your salary through higher costs on the products and services. None of our employers are manufacturing money (unless you work for an organized crime boss)

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Ramblin' Ma'amsays:

16 August 2012 at 6:02 am

# 291:

“I personally question how much information a person has when they assert they have a lot of friends as teachers who make a WHOLE lot more than they do.”

I make $35K a year. My mother is a public school teacher and makes over $90K. My stepfather teaches auto shop and doesn’t have a college degree; he makes over $70K. My friend is a special ed teacher who’s been in the workforce for under 10 years; she makes around $60K. My aunt is a speech pathologist in the public schools and makes over $90K. A friend’s mother was making in the $60s as a kindergarten teacher when she retired.

A number of these people work in NJ, where the average starting salary is in the mid-40s, per the NEA:

NJ and MA have high costs of living. In states with lower costs of living, salaries are lower too–but that’s true for all professions. If a teacher lives in an area where the average starting salary is $25K, salaries in that area are probably fairly low in general.

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teachersays:

18 August 2012 at 6:33 am

#244
Jane…project ever? I’ll keep my fingers crossed that your kids never end up in my class, cause I don’t want to waste hours listening to you yell at me about your kid’s underperformance and how I’m a martyr (that happens…it’s usually the unstable desk jockey type that likes to yell).
And yes, I am qualified to speak on work loads as I spent 10 years in very well respected private organizations before teaching. I know what happens there…sorry this bursts your dreamy bubble about the nobility of everyone that’s not a public servant.

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redballsays:

19 August 2012 at 7:34 pm

Ramblin’ Ma’am said:

‘I do object to Anne calling her salary a “pittance,” when she earns about $10K more a year than the average American. And I say this as someone who makes about what she does, and lives in one of the most expensive cities in the country.’

What city are you in? I live in the DC metro area and you cannot live well here on the allegedly “non-pittance” salary of $25,000 that you make!

Also the median salary for Americans includes all working age groups (a problem b/c it’s obviously not fair to compare yourself to 18-year-olds!) and doesn’t adjust for cost of living differences such as the difference between urban and rural settings.

I am in the Boston area, which is the fifth most expensive in the country. I don’t make $25K–I make $36K, about $10K over the median. I added the disclaimer because I anticipated that if I called $36K a decent salary, someone would chime in that I must live in the Midwest, or a rural area, etc.

If I had kids, it would definitely be a struggle–but hopefully then there would be a second income.

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Tomsays:

20 August 2012 at 11:35 am

Or more, once you put your kids to work!

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Laurasays:

14 August 2012 at 8:03 am

Just want to say that this IMHO sums up the problem: teens entering college, for the most part, simply do not have enough knowledge and life experience to make informed choices about taking on debt and navigating a mine field of choices. If a knowledgeable and concerned adult capable of guiding the student is involved, then there’s hope, but if a student is totally on their own, s/he is being asked to make big decisions without the necessary knowledge base to do so.

Honey is smart, but when young, did not have the necessary knowledge base. Neither did I, but I was fortunate to only do one year of college at a state school long ago so it was only $1500 + interest to pay back. I used Boston University’s tuition remission plan for employees to finally get my Bachelor’s at age 45 (after 20 years of off-and-on work at it).

The same general idea applies to personal finance. How can a teen or young adult make the right choices without knowledge or guidance from a competent and caring adult? This is what gets people into financial trouble that becomes so difficult to climb out from.

It will be a great day when PF becomes a mandatory subject taught in our schools.

My high school did teach PF–but only to students who were not on a college track. The kids going on to jobs or trade schools learned “practical math” and “life skills” while the rest of us did calculus, trig, etc. But the former is much more useful in “real life”!

Education has value in an of itself. We taught our children that the best work they could do to earn money for college was to get the best grades and be involved in the best leadership possible. That student profile actually pays better than high school “jobs”. Each of our kids received grants and aid worth far more financially than high school jobs would ever have paid them from the best schools to which they were accepted. Competitive schools do look carefully at the classes a student takes in high school. They also look carefully at the kind of leadership positions and activities in which students participate. We helped out however we could financially and our children received first rate educations.

If you want your children to have job training there are better options than a four year liberal arts education. If you want your children to acquire an education, a four year liberal arts education is the superlative choice. It is possible to do some creative mixing and matching but parents should have a clear idea about what kind of program they are interested in for their children.

Agree. One of the first things I did after graduating from college was taking a $35 adult education personal finance class.

Yes I had a BA, no I had no knowledge of finances. That little $35 course has served me well. Learned how to calculate my net worth, which shortly after college was negative. Learned about investing, IRAs, 401k, mutual funds, etc. Learned how to create a little budget.

“Just want to say that this IMHO sums up the problem: teens entering college, for the most part, simply do not have enough knowledge and life experience to make informed choices about taking on debt and navigating a mine field of choices. If a knowledgeable and concerned adult capable of guiding the student is involved, then there’s hope, but if a student is totally on their own, s/he is being asked to make big decisions without the necessary knowledge base to do so.”

Yes, Anne I have to agree with you. I feel that “A College Education” is spoken of like the golden ticket in many middle and lower earning communities. It is this passage out of your current state. If you go you will have all the doors opened to you!

It is hard, because your community is speaking from their experiences of “all the doors closed to them” because they didn’t have a college degree. But, it does not follow that a college degree will open all the doors.

Certain degrees open certain doors. This is impossible to know unless somebody has told you. All too often people find out too late, that their degree isn’t exactly what they thought it would be.

So true! I didn’t figure this out until I contemplated going to grad school. I went to college without even thinking about it–it was just something I was “supposed” to do. My parents didn’t have college degrees, we were poor, and like you said–they viewed a degree as a “golden ticket.” The formula was simple: the more schooling you have, the more money you make. (Not that I’m blaming them at all–I’m glad I got my Bachelor’s, and I didn’t have too much debt–about 10K). But when I started thinking about grad school, I really didn’t have a plan, except that it would be something in the Liberal Arts. I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to major in; I was going by that silly formula. Luckily, a conversation with a colleague talked me out of it, educating me on the cost-benefit. For the career I wanted, a graduate degree was not only unnecessary, it wasn’t worth the investment.

Thanks for sharing your interesting story, Honey. And congrats on having a job you love!

I get the feeling that a college education has been oversold in this country, or at least families are given the impression that the higher earnings of a college grad will be instantaneously apparent upon graduation.

Sure, the average lifetime earnings of a college grad will be higher than the average lifetime earnings of someone with just a high school diploma. But, the key words are “lifetime” and “average.”

Somewhere along the way the thought went from “it’d be nice if those who WANT to go to college can go to college” to “EVERYONE should go to college.” Um, not quite….

I owe about 15% of what you owe, but I pay as much as I can toward it, about $400 per month. I should also mention that I make just under what you make and live in a fairly expensive city. It’s all about priorities. If you make paying back your loans a priority over eating out or whatever else, it can be done. Loan forgiveness for non-profits is crap. Many non-profits are extremely corrupt and should not get special treatment. There are many jobs that do amazing things for society that are not part of a non-profit.

I have to say I had no idea that the “public service” loan forgiveness program was so controversial or that non-profits are so widely regarded as corrupt cheats…

I serve on the board of a non-profit that provides services to traditionally marginalized groups (I’m intentionally obfuscating details for privacy, it’s a very unique organization). We would not be able to acquire as many talented individuals to provide service to our lean organization if they were also having to work in the best paying job possible in order to pay off their often expensive arts degrees.

The “public servant” program allows for organizations providing vital services to attract talented people when they often can’t afford to pay them what they are worth (that is, their weight in gold).

If a non-profit is worth government funding, then money should be allocated to the non-profit specifically. Instead there is a blanket policy to subsidize all non-profits, regardless of what the non-profit actually does for society.

For example, the College Board runs the SAT, which is a good thing, but they are a non-profit that makes a lot of profit and definitely doesn’t need special treatment. Many other non-profits are really political organizations, and I don’t want my tax dollars subsidizing right or left wing whackos.

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CPALadysays:

14 August 2012 at 11:50 am

Not all non-profits qualify as “public service” and political organizations most likely don’t (I believe only 501(c)(3) groups qualify, not 501(c)(4) groups) and even then there might be a limit to what 501(c)(3) groups one can work for and receive the benefit.

You don’t have an invalid point, I just wanted to be sure we’re talking about the same thing.

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CPALadysays:

14 August 2012 at 1:09 pm

Okay, I got curious and looked it up. Any person who works for a 501(c)(3) while making 120 payments (under specified repayment plans) and is not in default can receive the public service loan forgiveness.

NOT ALL NON-PROFITS ARE 501(c)(3)!!! (This is a general announcement, I see that misconception a lot)

501(c)(3) organizations provide the following sorts of services (from the federal student aid website): may be a qualifying public service organization if it provides certain specified public services. These services include emergency management, military service, public safety, or law enforcement services; public health services; public education or public library services; school library and other school-based services; public interest law services; early childhood education; public service for individuals with disabilities and the elderly. The organization must not be a labor union or a partisan political organization. (emphasis added)

I would love to know where you got your Masters to teach English as a Second Language to adults, how long it took, and also how much did the degree cost. A university in my area is asking about $44K for a 1 year intensive master’s program to teach adults at the community college level, and I can’t get hired at the community college level without this degree or something similar. I’ve been in this field for 10 years and am not making much, but could do somewhat better with a masters (more job security, retirement, health insurance, …), but it’s freaking expensive!

Hi Sweet Coffee,
I attended a private college for a two year Master’s program it cost about $25,000 per year and did not offer any TA or RAs. My hope was then to get hired as a full-time professor at a community college. Turns out the community colleges in Massachusetts do not have very many full-time positions, so I taught as an adjunct at several colleges for several years. This offers no job security, no benefits, a very low salary (starting pay is about $2000 per course and goes up to $3000 depending on the number of courses you’ve taught over time). I got fed up with the hodge-podge of working at so many different schools and having to figure out my schedule the week before classes started each semester, plus I hated having nothing to do all summer, so I found a full-time job (not in teaching ESL) and teach one class a semester to augment my income.

I’d recommend checking into the adjunct to full-time ratio of instructors where you’re planning to teach and maybe talk to some of the adjuncts to see what the environment and pay are like before sinking the money into the course.

Thanks Anne! Your experience with a hodgepodge of teaching community college classes rings of a reality I’ve seen– need to research this more… Maybe I should check out human services!

I really appreciate the suggestion to find out the ratio of tenured vs. adjunct professors where I might find employment after graduation. This idea sparked a good thought: ask the “admissions counselor” at the school I’m interested in about the ratio of graduates that get tenured positions versus adjunct, and what is the average length of time doing adjunct work before becoming a full-time tenured teacher?

Thank you for sharing!!!

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LRsays:

14 August 2012 at 5:06 am

I graduated college in 1989 with a BA in English/Classics and $6 K in student loan debt at 6.5% interest. Scholarships covered the rest and would have covered the whole debt had my parents not sabotaged my efforts to use one scholarship (long story–but it’s worth noting that not all parents want the best for their kids).

After that, I went on to grad school in English–tuition and living expenses covered (barely) by fellowships and TAships. I escaped with a PhD, no debt, and a pretty jaundiced view of higher education. My best takeaways were excellent research skills and profound skepticism about what “experts” say, which I turned to good account in the 2001 tech wreck.

To answer Honey’s questions:

1–Debt: $6 K total, all from undergrad, all unnecessary, paid off within 2 years of PhD graduation.

2–Degree: PhD, English

3–Got my BA in the late 80s, PhD in the mid/late ’90s.

4–I never had a single constructive discussion of student loan debt but, having had spendthrift parents, I was terrified of debt of any kind (and I honestly didn’t know until my late 20s that I *could* carry a balance on my credit card–figured I had to pay it off every month. Yep, I was that clueless).

5–The information I received about job prospects in my field was not merely grossly misleading, but 100 percent wrong. The faculty at my graduate institution refused to have honest discussions about the job market situation, since that would have meant restricting their intake of grad students and thus denying themselves TAs and, as a result, having to teach classes themselves. Those who were not deliberately unethical were either deeply stupid or downright unhinged. To this day, I wonder how many of them can balance their own checkbooks.

6–I would have gotten better advice about college majors and their relation to career prospects. I didn’t even know I *could* major in things like engineering (hey, I was a girl from the sticks with a father who didn’t think girls should go to college). If I could do it all over again, I’d choose a different undergrad major, though I’ve been able to make this one work for me, sort of.

7–I managed to not take on debt in grad school by having two roommates, no car, living on rice and beans, having holes in my shoes–you name it. It was all worth it–not just because I didn’t have debt at the end of the journey, but also because those habits of frugality stuck with me. So long as I’m making more than $8 K a year, I still feel rich.

My advice to anyone considering grad school? Understand two things: 1) You should NEVER pay for a PhD program; 2) The ritual hazing that occurs at most schools is vicious and designed to make you believe that grossly inappropriate abuse is just something that you should expect as part of the workaday world. Maintain your ties to people outside academe; you will need them desperately. Do not trust people who offer to “mentor” you; do not trust that “one more publication” will get you the job you want; and for the love of God, stay away from the humanities.

I want to agree with the never go into a PhD without a guaranteed assistantship, though it’s different in different fields. The department I work for now doesn’t have those, largely because it’s pretty grant-driven.

I’d also add that you should do your darndest to live on those assistantships! I had them the entire time I was in grad school and still ended up where I am now.

College admissions advisors = salespeople. Period. Their best customers are 17 year olds with starry-eyed, ambitious-by-proxy parents; or, those with parents with no resources at all to help their kids go to college. Those with plenty of money saved for college are harder to sell.

That said, until we start requiring “practical mathematics” courses in high school (instead of pre-calculus), there will be many more 17 year olds, just like many of us were, who have no idea how simple interest, amortization, forebearance and investments really work until we’re 5 or 10 years into the game, and realize that we’ve got thousands of dollars to pay back.

I really don’t understand the “savvier than thou” folks on here, because we were ALL in this boat, except for the lucky few of you who were not raised by wolves when it comes to personal finance like the rest of us were.

Also, there are plenty of people who grew up in HUD housing, with parents who were disabled, or who were themselves bankrupt, and had no choice but to go into debt (to some degree) if they wanted to go to college & break the cycle.

Let’s cut each other some slack…

As to Honey’s questions:

1. Around $38,000 for undergrad, after 1/4 tuition performing arts scholarships (paid in full); will have around $20,000 after I finish graduate school.

2. BA =Music Performance, but at a school with a strong core curriculum and plenty of excellent electives (i.e. not a fine arts conservatory); MBA, Organizational Management

3. 1994-1998; 2011-2013

4. No, no one ever talked with me about student loans, or whether my BA would “pay” (generally, with a Music Performance degree, you either go on to get an Education degree, or go to grad school for arts administration, conducting, etc.)

My dad had sports scholarships, and stayed at the job where he co-op’ed for 35 years. My mom only finished one year of college. I learned how all of this worked when I was a Junior in college, and took a fantastic Math of Finance class as an elective.

5. Advice? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

6. Even though I did not get a degree in my field, I paid off my undergrad staffard loans in about 6 years (I think). The lender that I used gave me 2% interest rate deduction for every 24 months of payments, so I was able to get that paid off faster. I plan to pay off the MBA loan in a little less than 2 years.

My biggest takeaway from your story is how important it is to try out a job/many jobs before heading to grad school. If you had entered “the real world” after undergrad, you may have discovered a job that made you really happy before going into debt for your graduate degrees. I agree about having a statute of limitations on regret, so I’m not trying to make you feel bad about this–but this is a super important lesson for a lot of people.

I wholeheartedly agree. I had a hiatus from classes during undergrad when I worked full-time (albeit in a crappy job geared towards college students and part-timers). That gave me extra incentive to 1) not screw up in college 2) maximize my earning potential.

Honey, does your job require a MA/PhD? Could you have landed in this job that you love without also getting 100k in debt?

To answer the questions,
Graduated with $2,500 (paid for one summer session on loans); fully paid off
BS in IT, graduated 2004
No one really discussed the student loan, but I knew that debt was bad, so I paid part of it off before I graduated – could have paid the rest off more quickly than I did, but the payment/interest was so low that I put my money to work elsewhere
Fairly accurate representation of job prospects

I took 4 years off between undergrad and graduate school and have to disagree. For those of us who graduated in the last decade, the flexibility to ‘do what you love’ has disappeared. I returned to graduate school because I had few career options without another degree. The problem is that, as a commenter mentioned above, there is a lot of misinformation about whether a degree helps all that much — and what precisely it prepares you for. I’m now finishing and in a similar position as I was when I started, at least career-wise. I also am a clearer thinker, a more precise writer, and I’ve gained research skills. But most of the jobs that I’m qualified for want a(nother) specialized degree (unless I turn to administration, which I would enjoy and think is often/can be valuable, but I’m also concerned about administrator bloat which is inflating the tuition prices at most universities). So I either languish on this job market or I start my own business. I think rather than recommend people take time off, it’s better to advise that they gain a wide range of experience outside their field so they have the skills to move into other positions, including those they make themselves.

“For those of us who graduated in the last decade, the flexibility to ‘do what you love’ has disappeared.”

The actual practical nature of following the ‘do what you love’ path hasn’t really changed at all. Its not like previous generations all got to pick jobs they love in fields they love simply from deciding to do so. Theres lots of Gen X people out there with humanities degrees who are underemployed.

And what’s more, isn’t the whole “do what you love” concept fairly recent? I doubt that our grandparents thought that way about their jobs.

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Jen from Bostonsays:

15 August 2012 at 2:47 pm

I’ve seen both sides, in a way. I think the whole “do what you love” when applied to picking a college major has to be balanced out with practicalities. Sure, major in English if you want, but perhaps take some econ and accounting classes as electives? And work work work during the summers, whether it’s flipping burgers or an internship. It’s always good to show a prospective employer that you are WILLING to work and that you have worked!

The flip side of doing what you want is majoring in business/pre-med/pre-law or whatever your parents made you do. If it’s something that you really hate or have no interest in then you aren’t as likely to make your best effort. I have two friends who went to undergrad business schools because their parents made them. One of them majored in accounting, and she is not an accountant type, and she hates working in finance. Another just got a general management degree, and is doing well in IT, but her personality is such that she would have loved getting a liberal arts degree, and yes, she still would be able to have the same career she has now. I have another friend whose parents disapproved of him messing around with computers in the 80s. They wanted him to do something more traditional. Well, you can guess how well he’s doing now

So… I don’t know. I just hate it when parents force their kids to major in certain subjects, and to me it’s an extreme response to the “what do I major in” question.

FWIW, my degree is in sociology, and I work in IT. Yes, getting a job straight out of college was tough because it was a recession (early 90′s) but eventually I got a job (retail mgmt), switched careers, and now I’m doing well financially. So a liberal arts degree doesn’t consign you to bankruptcy, underemployment, and ramen noodles for dinner.

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Audreysays:

14 August 2012 at 6:35 am

I completely want to second this. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I graduated with a BS in genetics, but research sounded fun, and grad school was a great way to “get prepared for research” without a lot of thought about what I wanted to do. (Read that as scared of life changes, and I took the easy way out.)

During grad school I got paid, but far less than research assistants I worked with who only had bachelors degrees. Same with being a post doc. And, for the joys of working longer hours at less pay, I discovered that I hated research. I liked the idea of it, but not the benchwork or fighting for diminishing funding.

I finally found a job that I love, but it was very difficult because with a PhD, I’m overqualified. The first few months, my boss kept asking me not to quit until at least a year. She thought this was a transition job.

I at least had the benefit of not going into debt because of my school choices (just because of my stupidity and my inability to say “no”), but I wish I had taken a different route to discover that I didn’t like research. I would have financially benefited in the long run.

I agree wholeheartedly! I actually went for my A.S. so that I could get into the work force as fast as possible. Since then I have completed my B.S. doing night classes and I am soon going to be working on my Master’s degree (sans debt!). This was probably the best decision that I ever made.

In my opinion there are three possible reasons people go straight to grad school.

First, they had school paid for and don’t realize how important real-world experience is. Why not just get all of their schooling done with now and be able to focus entirely on their work/life balance afterwards. This is a very understandable, but still a huge misconception.

Second, they may be afraid to get into the real world and are therefore allowed to delay life by continuing their education prematurely. I see this ALL THE TIME with people my age (Mid 20s).

Third, people are under the false pretense that schooling is more important than work experience. I have speaking engagements at least once a month and I am ALWAYS sure to mention this. Work experience is as important, if not MORE important than schooling. A healthy balance of both is best, but most adolescents and young adults are never told this…

I have to disagree. While, especially in this economy, a lot of folks are putting off joining the workforce, it can also be a good decision depending on your field. With a Masters degree, my starting salary was roughly $35K more than if I had gotten hired with just a BS (90K compared to 55K).

Although I had an extra 45K in loans for those two years of grad school, I worked all through and was able to pay them off in 2-3 years. I’d definitely agree that for some degrees (e.g., an MBA) you want the work experience to pull from, it can still be a good decision.

My post is meant to focus on people who treat grad school and undergrad school like a utopia where jobs are unnecessary and bills don’t exist. It also considers the risk of debt, because you aren’t guaranteed an increase in income because of your higher education (Although that is generally how it works).

I completely agree with continuing along with education at a quick pace, but I suggest to get a real job while you do it.

In my situation I weighed the risk of debt, and I am waiting until my B.S. is completely paid off, I have a 6 month emergency fund saved, and I make enough to attend grad school without loans.

I generally agree with this. In my experience, the students at my professional school that had taken a break between college and graduate school did much better than the students who were coming straight from college and treated it as more college.

THIS. If I had known 10 years ago what I know now, I think I would be in a much different financial position. Alas, I was an intelligent 18 year old who made incredibly stupid financial decisions and spent way beyond my means during college. Trust me, I’m paying for those decisions now.

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Jen from Bostonsays:

14 August 2012 at 10:52 am

I’m a pretty smart person. At least my mom says so

Yet I CRINGE when I think of some of the stupid things I did when I was 18-22. And, no, I am not going to tell you what they are. I’m not as brave as Honey.

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Dansays:

14 August 2012 at 12:26 pm

It is most certainly human nature, but what is scary to me is that she incurred the debt, AFTER COLLEGE. She wasn’t 18 anymore. She was 22.

She went through 4 years of undergrad and couldn’t get a grasp that this grad school may not pay off? That’s the scary part. College didn’t do it’s job, didn’t prepare her well, IMO.

Obviously I am happy for her, she has found a passion. Just such a roundabout and not thought out way of getting there.

Besides, didn’t they just come out with a study that the human brain is fully debeloped until 25?

Anyway, just as you can’t expect an 18 year-old to be as wise as a 22 year-old, you can’t expect a 25 year-old to be as wise as a 35 year-old.

Also, it seems as though Honey was starting out at a lower level in terms of financial knowledge than some of us here. I know she was definitely starting out with much less info than I did, and that seems to be a function of our respective families’s knowledge about money. Sure, she could have filled in the gaps on her own, but as someone else said, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

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AMWsays:

14 August 2012 at 8:44 am

How about “you don’t know what you don’t know”? When you are 17-18 years old you are relying a lot on the people around you to help you make life decisions. Regardless how intellegent you are, if the people around you keep feed you the line that it will get you to where you want to go, or not to worry about it because you can pay it back later when you get that monumentous paying job the day after you graduate, what do you think they are going to do? How many people look at student loans as a necessary evil? MAYBE Honey should have looked a little harder at her situation but who was chirping in her ear?

Those were exactly the comments I heard from people around me. I figured that since I was spending dramatically less than the people around me (students whose parents paid for their college education and some living expenses) that what I was spending was “fine” and “reasonable.” Unfortunately, my parents could not help me financially and I was not in the same boat as my friends. I wish now that I had surrounded myself with more financially responsible people because I think I would have received different messages and I like to think I wouldn’t have made such dumb decisions if I had heard those messages.

I think it’s a really rare 18 year old who is on top of all the trade-offs required by, and long-term consequences of, various life decisions that come rushing at them during their late teens and early twenties. If you have responsible older siblings and/or parents who carefully coach you through it, that can definitely help. I desperately tried to do this with my younger sisters as I learned, and one of them STILL blew me off, because that is how kids ARE.

I entered college as the eldest daughter of divorced parents and basically no information about ANYTHING. I was insecure (like many teens) and not confident about what I wanted to do with my life, and this was the early 90s, the era of “do what you love and the money will follow.” My mother didn’t work, and had no clue about finance, and my father (who did) STILL imparted no specific info to me apart from “GO TO COLLEGE JUST GET A DEGREE ANY DEGREE”.

I was, however, VERY fortunate. I had worked part time in high school, and I worked summer jobs in college. My dad helped out with living expenses, and much of the tuition for my undergrad degree was paid by a trust fund from an aunt. Without that trust fund, I probably would have focused harder and matured (financially speaking) sooner, but I also would have taken on debt for which I wouldn’t have understood the long-term consequences.

As it was, I futzed a bit my first 2 years, finally graduated in 5. By the time I was in my 4th year, I was working part time all year round, and I continued to do that through grad school. I paid my own way through grad school and finished college without student loans.

HOWEVER, I spent most of those years just learning basic budgeting, self control, understanding tax liability (for contract work, esp.) and how not to run up credit cards. I didn’t even really BEGIN working on the basic steps of financial planning (emergency fund, retirement, prepaying debt, cost/benefit ratios of different jobs) until I was out of college and facing “reality” AKA the job market and “adult” expenses.

My husband came from dirt poverty and knew even less about money and long-term financial planning than me, so we had to learn it all together. He did have loans; however, he was very disciplined about paying them off and not living off credit cards. I was lucky there, too.

I wish like hell that I’d grown up faster and planned better and wasted less money (although I was never particularly irresponsible), but there was no one to teach me, no one to help me, and at that age, vague ideas about future salaries of 35-40K seemed perfectly fine because no one had ever shown me how much being an adult COSTS.

I took on six figures of debt for law school, and don’t regret it for a minute. I make a lot more than I would have made without the law degree. With the loan payments, I’m probably similarly situated financially to where I would have been without law school, but I also have a job I love that I look forward to going to (almost) every day.

That said, I’m well aware I got very lucky. I graduated from a top law school in 2008 (i.e., just before the market for legal services cratered). And while my friends from law school all have well-paying jobs, or jobs that allow them to take advantage of our school’s generous low income protection plan, a lot of them discovered too late that they don’t actually enjoy being lawyers. That didn’t happen to me. So I don’t necessarily recommend that other people take on the risk. But for kids who are highly motivated to be lawyers, have really taken a hard look at what the practice of law entails, and have got into one of the top 14 law schools? I don’t think taking out the debt is necessarily a bad decision.

“I didn’t want to live 200 miles from the nearest urban center. Not only that, I couldn’t even if I wanted to: Jake and I had been dating for over a year. Our relationship was getting serious enough that he needed to be a factor in my plans.”

Also, you say you “couldn’t” live where you received a job offer. Take a little accountability–you didn’t WANT to live there because of your relationship. No judgement here, I just think people need own their decisions and not think of them as situations they were forced into.

Could NOT agree more with your statement…I had never even heard of the term “geographically restricted” before reading this article. IMO…that term is nothing more than the politically correct way to say that an individual is unwilling to make hard decisions in a world that is not always fair.

My husband and I live in two different countries….so the whole 200 mile argument made me chuckle a bit. He is active duty military and I am a nurse…he is stationed somewhere right now that I can’t get a job. Taking anytime off in nursing is career suicide…so here we are. I also just found out I am,unexpectedly and miraculously pregnant (we do get occasional conjugal visits-LOL)…we have already made the hard decision that we will stay apart until my third trimester…that means he will miss most, if not all, appointments and I will be changing providers late in my pregnancy…not to mention that I will be alone for most of my pregnancy.

While I empathize with Honey’s plight (I am still paying off student loans), I always get this impression of excuses or an unwillingness to make true and/or hard sacrifices to improve her situation…..but maybe I am just reading her wrong.

BTW…my parents for about 2 years lived/worked in different states (with children) in order to improve their financial situation. I do understand that’s it’s probably extreme to most people…but certainly not unheard of.

“Geographically restricted” is a term used when applying for academic jobs. I am looking for jobs right now and advisors/professors always ask if I have any “geographic restrictions” when applying.

I do think one thing worth noting is that with academic jobs, it is difficult to move out/up once you have a position. So, most times, if you get a job, that is the job that you will have the rest of your life. This to me, is why I have geographic restrictions as well–I don’t want to spend the rest of my life living in Oklahoma.

My boyfriend, who’s working on his PhD, says this is the “two body problem” in academia. It’s hard enough getting a tenure track job when you have wide open flexibility with location, but once you have a spouse, it gets much, much harder. And, the demands placed on professors by the institutions is insane. I read a qualitative study done by a physics professor who’s married to another professor (bio?) about this issue. Some of the professor he spoke with reported having been told that they should divorce their spouse to get a job!!!!! And they were told this by hiring staff at universities. And they weren’t joking. Seriously?!?!?

So it didn’t come across to me as a surprised that Honey is “geographically restricted” in her job search for a tenure track professorship.

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Honey Smithsays:

14 August 2012 at 10:53 am

@Jen, the two-body problem is what it’s called, though typically that means both people are on the tenure track (which makes things much harder than if one spouse isn’t dependent on the U for money).

If you do decide to get a PhD and go tenure track, the piece of advice given most often (especially if your partner is also wanting to go TT) is NEVER WEAR A WEDDING RING TO AN INTERVIEW. Surprise them with your need for a spousal hire once you have the offer letter in hand.

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Tracysays:

14 August 2012 at 11:31 am

I feel you on that! We were happy (at the time) to be offered my husband’s position, but we had every expectation that it would be a stepping stone (because there was a lot of fluidity in the job market during the 90s). So the fact that it was in the one city that we had always literally joked about NEVER moving to, didn’t seem like a big deal. We’d be moving in a few years anyway.

It’s 12 years later and we’re still here, in a place we despise, with a life that makes it increasingly hard to move even if there were an opportunity to do so, which there isn’t.

We would certainly make a different choice if we could go back 12 years…

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KADsays:

14 August 2012 at 11:54 am

Yep. Honey and Jen are right on the money here. And academic departments often lose wonderful people they have hired (or have offered a job) because of a spouse’s job. It’s more often the case that the spouse or partner is an academic — but not always. Some administrators are more flexible and understanding in this situation; others are not.

One of the directors of my graduate program was legendary for having once said, “Husbands come and go, but tenure is forever.”

This problem is a remnant of an outdated academic hiring and tenure system that assumed the professor had a wife who stayed home with the kids. (An outdated assumption not exclusive to the academy).

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Jen from Bostonsays:

15 August 2012 at 2:59 pm

@Honey – That’s right, the two-body problem usually means both spouses are academics, and the study I referenced was about those types of couples. It’s just very, very sad. And ridiculous. I’m not in academia, and I can work remotely, so if my bf and I got married it won’t be aas much of a problem. However, there are still some places I wouldn’t want to move to……

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snerk1says:

14 August 2012 at 7:54 am

“My hottest lead turned out to be in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and I had a few realizations. I didn’t want to live 200 miles from the nearest urban center”.

This bothers me. I guess Honey doesn’t consider Pittsburgh an urban center because it is only 80 miles away. Even Cleveland is only 135 miles away:)

I know that I am being obnoxious pointing this out but I think that it taps into what sets off the storm of comments each time Honey posts. I don’t think it is really her debt issues that set people off but that she seems to exaggerate to make a point, has an excuse for everything, and sounds like a victim. Unlike the majority of GRS commenters, I have a lot of debt for various reasons and am not about to become Dave Ramsey. I don’t want to live on rice and beans anymore. I am in debt due to all the choices that I have made over a lifetime and for the most part have no regrets. Most of my adult life my finances have been a struggle, but I have chosen to change careers in order to bring in more money rather than practice extreme frugality. I understand and can relate to many of Honey’s decisions (getting into debt for graduate school, spending money on a wedding, etc.), I just tire of the justifications that sound like “due to circumstances this is the only possible decision I could have made.” Clearly there are always many options.

A lot of people are willing to move thousands of miles away from someone they’ve been dating for less than 2 years. I’m planning on spending the next 2 years at a school 6 hours away from my boyfriend of nearly 2 years just because it’s the cheapest and fastest way for me to finish my nursing degree. It’s always a personal choice, and one should weigh the pros and cons.

My nephew (now 21) has been going out with his girlfriend since high school. He didn’t get in her school. He spent 2 years at community college getting his grades up and fulfilling credits. when he was applying for colleges for transfer he got into her school, as well as a school with a well recognized program in his major. At that point he realized it was more important to go to the university with the strong program, so they will be separated for Another 2 years.

I finished my BA in English in May 1999 and my MA in education in August 2000 (I started my MA program the summer after my BA and just went 4 straight semesters – summer, fall, spring, summer – to finish just over a year after I started). I got both degrees at the same state university. I was lucky enough to have a grandmother who believed education was the most important thing a woman could do for herself and paid 90% of my undergraduate books & tuition (my parents and small scholarships mostly covered room & board). I graduated with one loan from my undergraduate years and two from grad school, all told about $12,000. I’ve been paying the minimum payment ever since then because my interest rate on the loans is so low that my money returns more than the interest I accumulate even in a simple money market account. I could, in theory, pay off the rest of my loans right now in one big chunk, but I don’t see why I should. I’ll be done paying them in about 2 years because I consolidated them about 8 years ago (and therefore started over on the 10 year pay-off plan).

No one that I recall talked to me about what the debt meant or what it could mean for my future. Since I thought at the time I wanted to be a high school teacher, however, job prospects and salary were discussed pretty thoroughly and accurately. I honestly don’t think I would have done anything differently, but my debt is definitely much smaller than many others’…

I went to college in 1992, and dropped out after my first semester due to drugs. My own drug use was not the problem, the problem was that I went straight from a dry conservative Bible-belt town to a dormitory at a serious party school. I had no clue how to cope with roommates who spent 90% of their time binge drinking and freebasing, and was too ignorant at that point to realize that all college situations were not like mine.

My dad and granddad had both been in the military and had survived relatively intact, so after I dropped out of college I enlisted. Best decision I ever made, period. I gained four more years of life experience and maturity, and I was able to get a year and a half of college classes done while on duty. On base. In a safe place with no cokeheads.

When I got out I finished up on the G.I. Bill. Computer Science. 100% debt free. I haven’t needed grad school, so I haven’t been. I’m a software developer today.

Did anyone talk to me about debt? Yes. My mom is a CPA and financial advisor. I got great college advice from her, including this gem: “Any college major that ends in the word ‘Studies’ is a one way ticket to a lifelong career at McDonald’s.” She wasn’t so helpful with the drug use advice… probably because that was outside her realm of experience too.

Student loan debt: the first time I went to college it was on scholarship. The second time I was paying my own way and there was no way I would’ve gone into debt. I was barely scraping by and the idea of taking out loans or using credit cards was scary to me because it meant I’d have to scrape even harder. I didn’t see the repayment of loans as a distant event.

Advice for others: if you’re healthy and if you’re undecided about what you want to be when you grow up, the military is worth a look. Even for girls. My experience was great.

What would I change about the student loan system? I don’t know, as I have no first-hand experience.

However, I think there should be more discussion about the link between majors and prospective jobs. Higher education is a purchase, not a navel-gazing exercise. Like any other [really freaking expensive] purchase, there should be objective cost-benefit analysis going on.

Sounds like some amazing experiences It would make an interesting reader story.

One note about job prospects: even good ones don’t always stay that way. I graduated in field where there was supposed to be a 90% placement rate, practically guaranteed job security, an amazing pension, etc, etc.

Is anyone laughing at me yet?

Low and behold, the predicted wave of baby boomer retirements never happened. In my year, there was an 80% employment rate — and that included people who were barely employed. (i.e. working one or two days a week.) Now the employment rate for new grads is less than 20%.

I know people who are still battling it out after years of part time work. Not having a spouse with a full time income, I didn’t have that luxury.

Now I’m really wary of people who say “there will always be a need for x”. True, but that need waxes and wanes, and sometimes there are way too many graduates for a limited number of jobs because everyone has the same idea!

A friend keeps on going back to school, trying to find that magical piece of paper. Did undergrad sciences, and decided that there were no jobs that would use that without additional years (she didn’t have the grades). She did an HR course. She talked about (but I don’t think she completed) a securities course. She went to teachers college (the most expensive one in the area for g*d knows what reason). She is now 35 and still working at the restaurant/bar she’s been working at since she graduated university. And she is still hoping to find that perfect piece of paper to get the job that gives her security and a pension and… Plus she’s TTC.

She’s a friend, but I don’t talk with her about money or jobs or life plans at all.

I find what your mother said to be quite rude and cynical. “Any college major that ends in the word ‘Studies’ is a one way ticket to a lifelong career at McDonald’s.” This sounds like a scare tactic. I’m glad that my parents instead told me to major in what I’m passionate about. For the record, I’m not working at McDonalds (not that there’s anything wrong with that ). Most individuals who work there probably don’t have a college degree.

Plus I find the use of “navel-gazing” to be overused on the internet. It’s just a somewhat sophisticated and pithy way of demeaning someone. One person’s navel gazing is another person’s self-discovery.

And I would ask – where’s the line between navel gazing and honest self-reflection? How can strangers on the internet know the difference?

Jane,
That’s an interesting perspective you’ve got. I got an undergrad degree that ended in “studies” and I happen to think that the mom’s advice was spot on. I didn’t always think that way, but I do now. Unfortunately for my son, I was still of the mindset when he went to college that he should study whatever he was passionate about – which he did. He has 3 majors, 2 minors, studied and traveled abroad and got his pilot’s license while in undergrad. Now he’s applying for any job he can get – including deliverying pizzas and the like. Ugh! Sure wish I would have steered him in a different direction.

“And I would ask – where’s the line between navel gazing and honest self-reflection? How can strangers on the internet know the difference?”

For me personally, that line is where taxpayer money gets involved. I’m all for self-reflection as long as it’s being self-funded. When people start asking for public assistance, however – grants, need-based scholarships, loan forgiveness, whatever – I think there needs to be a different level of justification involved.

Or put another way: every man and woman would probably benefit from education in some way. Why should I spend my tax dollars on person X’s education instead of some other person’s education, or on some other spending priority altogether? What will society get out of it? If that can’t be clearly articulated on the front end, BEFORE we start passing out money, then as a taxpayer I’m not on board.

Katie -
Sorry – I was pontificating about the use of navel gazing in general. My comment about it being demeaning was more general than specific to what you said.

I think overall we agree with each other. I for one am appalled by the number of those commenting who have upwards of $100,000 in debt and are biding their time to get it forgiven. It seems to me there are an awful lot of people who made poor decisions and are now (not surprisingly) drawn to the non-profit sector. Didn’t one person even purposefully switch to non-profit work just so they could qualify?

It bothers me as well that we as a society should foot the bill.

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Jennesays:

17 August 2012 at 12:03 pm

I don’t think you can always generalize about the name (or even the nature) of the program.
For instance, “Business Studies”? “Accountancy and Tax Studies”?

Graduates of Columbia University’s liberal arts program are getting offered juicy finance jobs (not because they can do the job straight out of the gate, but because of the prestige of the name).

While your experience in the peacetime military of the 1990s may have been great, we are now at war. About 50% of vets apply for disability. A lesser percentage are approved for disability, but that says more about how the military and VA treat vets rather than their physical or mental condition.

In 2010, there were 21.8 million veterans living in the United States. (Source: US Census Bureau)

That article says that 45% of the 1.6 million veterans who were stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan are filing for disability payments. It even says that the economy is a likely factor for applications being that high.

Don’t get me wrong… that’s unconscionably high. I have a stepson in Afghanistan now, so this isn’t an academic discussion (no pun intended) for me at all. But “about 50% of vets,” as that article does suggest, do NOT file for disability. It’s about 50% of recent combat vets. Most service members don’t serve in a war zone. EXTREMELY misleading.

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Parissays:

15 August 2012 at 7:19 am

While Katie’s clarification of the statistics is a useful correction of the data presented, KAB’s point that enlisting in the military for the purposes of self-discovery (which seems to be the point of Katie’s story – it gave her somewhere to grow up and learn discipline) has become a dubious idea after 2001 is very very true.

While many commenters here are livid at the very idea that they might have to subsidize someone else’s education (through the forgiveness of loans to certain occupations), I think it is morally problematic that the major path to debt free education offered in the US is the military. I have no problem educating American soldiers, but I think it is fucked up that so many have to become soldiers to merit an education.

I dropped out of school in high school. Eventually I got my GED. So I never dealt with student debt. But I did struggle with not being able to find a job because I wasn’t educated enough. Big problem. I think student debt can be okay IF you know what you’re in school for and have a job in mind that you’re getting educated for. But going to college just because sounds like a bad plan. But not going to school because you might get debt is also a bad idea.

I graduated with a B.A. in German with about $20,000 in debt. This included study abroad in Germany, which still ranks as probably the best thing I’ve ever done. Then I received an M.St. from a British university. I had almost free tuition and housing, so I managed to pay all my expenses for the year from a summer job.

Ten years later (!!!) I graduated with an M.A. and Ph.D. in history with no student loan debt at all. At one point I studied for a summer in NYC and had to carry two apartments. This put me in minor credit card debt for a year.

I started paying off my undergrad loans while in graduate school. After graduation we accelerated the loan payments and paid them off in about a year.

What did my department tell me about the abysmal job market? Not as much as they should have. But I saw the writing on the wall and, like Honey, became geographically bound. I would be pretty screwed if I didn’t have my husband, since I would be 34 with limited job prospects and no retirement. Well, I guess I am still that .

My advice to other graduate students? Aside from the obvious NEVER GO INTO DEBT FOR A PH.D. advice, I would suggest making some sacrifices when in graduate school. Open a Roth and put money in every year. I took several frivolous trips to Europe while in school. While they were fun, now I wish I had that money in an IRA.

There’s nothing wrong with dedicating a huge chunk of time to a specialized field, but be sure to do it on the university’s dime. And also recognize that you are giving up time that you could be employed. Heck, I haven’t even paid into Social Security yet. I think I underestimated the value of the time I would lose while in pursuit of knowledge. The benefits were many, but it was also an arrested development of sorts.

Like Honey, I pursued a Ph.D. because it was something at which I always excelled. But I also wanted to escape working for “the man”. But then I realized that higher education is just as much “the man” as the corporate world.

Totally agree with the don’t go into debt for grad school (unless there is a really, really good reason!)

There’s an unwritten rule in Canada that you don’t go to grad school unless you’ve got some kind of funding (scholarships or research grants – both of which are dependent on your research area) or you’re independently wealthy I didn’t know about this unwritten rule until I was in an MA program, unfortunately!

When it comes to PhDs, the thinking is that if no one is going to pay you to train in a certain field, then chances are no one in academia is going to pay you to teach/research in it either. Most career paths outside of academia don’t require a PhD, and the advanced degree can actually hurt you in the job search.

Whether anyone talked to you about student debt or the job prospects in your field:

Nope. Not only that, I had no hand in even applying for my student loan. After I lost my scholarships (due to personal reasons) my dad took out the loans in my name. I had no idea how much they were, or even how to check up on that information. Nobody talked about job prospects either, the assumption was just “there is always money in science/engineering”.

What you wish you had done differently/advice for others:

I actually am pretty happy with how things turned out for me (squeaked into a job right before the downturn), but I have a lot of friends who DIDN’T end up so great. I think the biggest thing is: YES of COURSE it is important to follow you dreams…but do you need a college education to do it? Or do you need to start following your dreams right out of school, when you can barely make ends meet? I think its misleading to ask children “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, as if there were only one thing you get to be, ever, and if you don’t choose correctly you’ll be miserable. Instead, I like the concept of being semi-retired: Early in your life should be about making money, and pursuing your passions in your own time, as a hobby. As you get better at your hobbies, start taking classes on them to go past where you can be on your own. Finally, once you have a cash cushion you can try to make a living using your hobby, and you won’t financially cripple yourself if you underestimate the difficulty.

Unless a college degree actually will MEAN something to your passion, don’t bother with it. Why major in a foreign language (or art, or writing) if the major test is of ABILITY, not paper. Find out what it takes to succeed in your career. Speak spanish fluently, paint, whatever. Contrast that with a technical degree (science, engineering, whatever), where the person employing you might not know enough to judge if you’re any good or not, so a degree is used as shorthand for skill (at least when you are starting out).

For me, I’m lucky that my passion is somewhat related to my degree: I love Artificial Intelligence. But I’ll tell you right away there aren’t many jobs in the area (and certainly none in my area), so I’m taking my own advice and doing a lot of fun A.I. projects on the side, and testing the waters to see if I can make money on them in addition to my stable programming job.

How you’re dealing with your debt:

I paid it off as soon as I could, though even that wasn’t fast enough for me. I was lucky to get a job right away, and to learn enough financial literacy to not blow my paychecks on temporary things.

(1) My total student loan debt was somewhere around $5500. That loan was the result of going away to school for one year. Otherwise, I lived at home and seemed to make money from school. I was in a system that has mostly commuter students, cheap tuition and my family is poor so I always had financial aid. (Oh yeah, and I spent six years as a full-time undergraduate. Whoops.) The debt has no real impact, since I pay only about $50/month and have around $2500 in debt remaining.

(2) I have a BS in a science-related field and my MS in a field I have no interest in—and I got it mostly for free. I was enrolled in a program that allowed me to work full-time and complete my MS in two years. AmeriCorps funded the entire cost of my MS (sans fees and books) plus allowed me to apply the remaining money they gave me to the loan.

(3) What would I have done differently? So many things that I don’t even have a starting point. I would have studied and worked hard in HS. I would have cared about applying to college and not just go because everyone else seemed to be going. (I might haven been lazy and my parents might have told me that I would either work or go to school.) I would have done more things to see what I really wanted to pursue in life. Sigh. I hate even thinking about it.

(4) I knew nothing about student debt. I purposely went to cheap city or state schools so that I could avoid it for the most part. Additionally, I would never pursue a graduate degree that I would have to pay for—in fact, I am probably going to apply to programs to earn a second MS that my union will pay for in its entirety. Okay—there are a few programs that I would pay for (like PA) but not many.

•Your total student loan debt
I graduated with a bachelors degree in 2007 with about $28K. It would have been more if I hadn’t been a resident assistant for 3 years, plus taken winter session classes to graduate in 4 years
I’m sure I signed the promissary note and all the mandatory “exit counseling” (offered online, which is a mistake for 20-somethings, who know how to click next-next-next-finish-submit without reading anything), but felt really unprepared when I got my first student loan bill. I didn’t realize what the monthly payment was going to be, and anyway, no one ever taught me how loans worked. I wish that Direct Loans, or whoever serviced student debt would give you a “progress report” of sorts, that would say this is your total accumulated debt, at this current interest rate, it would be a payment of $x per month for 10 years. This would be in the same vein as what credit card companies put on their bills, “If you only pay the minimum it takes x months and costs y dollars”

Professors didn’t really talk about job prospects, they were much more focused on grooming you for graduate work. I guess that maybe 1/3rd of my classmates (sounds high but that’s really only about 10 students) went on to grad school, so that seems a little misguided, but I went to a research-oriented school.
I lucked out and got a job about a year and a half before the economy really started affecting the field that I’m in, avoiding hiring freezes and 2 layoffs, and I’ve been promoted. Thus I’ve made significant progress on my loans and eliminated all my other debt from college. I also benefitted by taking out 75% of my loans while they were variable rates, and then saw interest rates plummet significantly from 2007-2010, when I locked in a 3% fixed rate. I’m under $18k now, and I think I will be able to pay them off by the end of next year.

They do the loan exit interview online now?!?!? UGH! That was the one and only time I ever got any bit of decent financial information from my college!! And people were able to ask questions.

So, the one good piece of advice we got in our exit interview (they did it as a group session), was that while we could pre-pay without penatly, we should prioritize paying our credit cards first. The interest on our lonas was only 5%, and interest on the credit cards would be much, much higher. The financial aid lady told us to just make the minimum payments on our ed loans and keep our credit card balances low or at zero. And, when someone asked, she said that if you go to grad school or the Peace Corps to give them a call and they would either help you defer the loans (Peace Corps) or work out some sort of modified payment plan (grad school).

But, there wasn’t any sort of financial counseling when we got our aid packages as students. Only when we were graduating seniors.

I agree that it would be very helpful for students with loans to understand the impact of interest and how long it will take to pay it back. The information on your credit card statement is new– and a result of the Credit Consumer Protection Act. I mention this because politics is often a dirty word in the comments section, but policy determines what kind of information creditors are required to give us and how we receive it. Something like this for student loans would be terrific.

I have debt just under 10k right now. I actually graduated with a BA in English debt-free, thanks to my mom’s help. I landed a work-at-home job as a tech writer shortly after my daughter was born, and after a couple of years I decided I wanted to go for an MFA in creative writing. I got into a low-residency program, but the cost was really bothering me, but the head of the program called me and convinced me that taking out loans wouldn’t be a problem. He was the only person who talked to me about financial aid, and he convinced me it’d be totally kosher. So I took those loans out and attended my first residency.

Halfway through the term, I couldn’t stop thinking about the debt I’d be taking out to finish the program. I really wanted to have another baby when it was all done, but I’d be $40K in debt and the thought of having a baby AFTER that was terrifying. Also, I was still a mom and I’d kept my full-time job, and I felt severely overextended. I knew the MFA wasn’t necessarily going to advance my career. So I dropped out. $10K in the hole with no degree to show for it, but I felt that was better than $40K in the hole with a creative writing degree.

I guess my only regret is not listening to my deeper instincts. I had ALWAYS been wary of the cost and how much the degree could actually advance my career. In fact, everything I’d read about MFA programs was that they weren’t worth it, and I wish I’d listened to that instead of letting the “But I really want it!” voice win out. I’m at the point where I wouldn’t go back to school unless I could pay for it in cash.

Right now I’m paying the predetermined minimum every month. I’m paying down my credit card debt more aggressively, and I’ll probably tackle the loans when I’m done with that.

I work with graduate students now, and if they come to me and say they are unhappy and want to leave the program, I am supportive of their decision. Which I think is important, because their advisors are often very upset about it. But yes, why keep taking out debt for something you know won’t make you happy?

I had approximately $24K of federal student loans when I graduated in 2007 with a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering. I went to a state school near where I lived to keep tuition as low as possible. I did live on campus the first 3 of 5 years and off campus for the last 2.

My parents agreed to pay what they could, which was rent and most of the tuition. I was responsible for covering the rest. I had a job in athletics that paid well but it was a lot of hours. I quickly found I had to cut back on credits to be able to work as much as I did. Thus the 5th year. Plus, engineering isnt the easiest degree in the world.

Ended up with a decent job out of school just before the market tanked and I’m still in the same job.

Graduated this past January with a Bachelor’s in Molecular Biology & Microbiology, $31K in mostly subsidized loans. Got a job immediately in a chemistry-related field. Not making a ton of money but I was more than prepared when I made my first student loan payment this past month. My monthly payment is about 30% more than the minimum. I am on track to be debt-free in 7 years, assuming no increases in income. I work 45 hours a week and lead a thoroughly enjoyable life (not sure if that was a question but I thought I’d mention it).

My advice? Stick with STEM. It pays. I hated chemistry in high school and now it’s my career and I love it. Take the “do what you love” advice with a healthy grain of salt.

Current? This field has always paid. Engineering has been hot since I was a freshman (in 1998) and hasn’t changed.

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Elysays:

14 August 2012 at 5:13 pm

Engineering was hot when my dad finished his PhD in nuclear physics in the mid-70′s and it will remain hot as long as Americans take the attitude that it isn’t cool to be super-smart. My brother is a chemical engineer and most of his classmates and co-workers have been Indian or Chinese; he is one of the few ‘white guys’ in the industry.
American companies would rather hire Americans, but there is a dearth of them at the highest levels of STEM. The field is unlikely to be oversaturated anytime soon.

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kuzsays:

14 August 2012 at 6:21 am

I ended up taking out around 10k in student loans because my parents encouraged me to use that to ‘help build my credit’. I didn’t even need the money so I invested it but looking back it seems like strange advice.

BS, MS in Ag Business/ Econ. (current Econ PHD)

Job prospects were about as good as the individual made it. The most employable people found work easily while other still don’t have great jobs. (even when graduating in 2009)

The big ‘secret’ to graduate school is in the US (in employable majors) is that should be free/you get paid to go. Almost all graduate students should be able to receive funding that pays (in GA) about $1000 a month and free tuition.

I remember when I found out about ‘funding’ and thinking this is amazing! Even though both my parents and all my older sibling have graduate degrees I didn’t realize this was the case.

Final advice:
If you want a fancy degree (or even Ivy League), go to a cheap state school and then go to a fancy graduate school. It is actually easier to get into most Ivy’s or top school for graduate compared to undergrad. Also, top school pay you for graduate school so you come out ahead. And finally, people judge you based on your most prestigious degree (even if it is not terminal) so don’t waste money on expensive bachelors if you want to go to grad school.

Lastly, most state university will let you take free classes if you work there even if you are just picking up trash full time. I am currently taking advantage of this by working on my PHd while working full time. Win Win

Most of the really cutting-edge research comes out of state schools, which typically have better graduate programs. I think Ivy League is really only worth it for undergrad (and at the undergrad level they have a lot more leeway to help you with aid that ISN’T loans, assuming you are awesome).

Absolutely I’d go state again for the PhD. Most Ivy leagues are so enveloped in their own tradition they don’t even offer grad degrees in the fields that are considered cutting edge now. The program I graduated from was top 5 for rhet/comp, the only Ivy in the top 10 is the U of Pennsylvania (which I did apply to).

It does depend on the area you are studying, of course – Joe Mihalic (read his blog if you haven’t, it’s amazing) took out a crap-ton of debt for his Harvard MBA and he was very strategic about it. Or if you were going into medicine, I’m imagining Ivy League is better.

But if you are talking humanities at an ivy league you are usually talking about literature (which I was never super interested in). I don’t know a *ton* about it, but it’s my understanding that in the sciences, the real grant machines are the state schools.

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Dansays:

14 August 2012 at 4:28 pm

I think you misunderstood the advice. Go whenever/wherever because for undergrad, because it doesn’t matter. Go where it matters for grad school. But “where it matters” is not necessarily equivalent to “ivy league.” Where is strictly degree dependent.

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Jennesays:

17 August 2012 at 12:55 pm

Actually, in my field (library science), where the required/terminal degree is the master’s, and it’s a professional rather than research degree, most people will have to pay for their degree rather than being paid to get it.

In that case, you’re better off going to the school that gives you the best scholarship deal– which may well be a private one, since public school funding is being cut all over the place– and going to a state school for the final degree, since that’s where the cost is going to really sock it to you.

I’m glad to hear that at least Honey is happy where she’s ended up (life-wise, not debt-wise), but I still have no idea how she got there. Coming out of undergraduate there was no debt, then a couple of graduate degrees later there was $100,000+? Where exactly did that money go? Tuition? Supplementing income? I got the impression there was a teaching fellowship for the PhD (hence the $14,000 a year), which usually pays tuition, so how much was being borrowed just to supplement the lifestyle? It worries me that this information isn’t in here because right now it sounds like you sacrificed yourself for a great education, but I feel like maybe it was more for plain old living beyond your means. If people are going to learn from this confessional-style piece, it’s important to know how much money was being spent and why.

Ditto. When I first read this I thought she didn’t have any fellowship at all. But based on her comments, it appears as if she did. I think she is obfuscating a bit here – perhaps out of fear that the backlash will be even more fierce once people learn the whole story?

So really this is a lesson in not living above your means, rather than a lesson in not going into debt for your education.

That’s what I’m wondering. In my graduate program with at the time 12-13K in assistantships a year it was possible to graduate without debt. But the students buying starbucks 5x a week or financing a car, that’s a different story. Somehow the reality of how they were financing their lifestyle didn’t hit until they graduated.

Like some of the readers, I come from a poor family. Unlike some of my classmates, my parents couldn’t afford to send me to school. They could help, and they did. Academics and extra curricular activities were my only way to get a scholarship. Hence, I worked my ass off, got a 4 year full ride scholarship to a great university.
At school, I somehow found professors and mentors that talked about job prospects after school. Actually, we had a lot of professors who suggested majoring in MIS or engineering to get a job.

When I was young, we could have been considered poor. As I entered High School, I eventually had to start paying for lunch. Now, I’m not sure how much money that means we had, but I assume we were no longer “in poverty.” I would say that at this point my family was probably between mid and mid-upper class.

My parents helped me by paying about $10,000 total for my college. I went to a technical school and got 2 associate degrees. From there I got a good job, got married, bought a house, and went back for my B.S. At the end of it all, working full time making 52k to start, and 100k by the end of my B.S. I had about 40k debt (Not including the house).

This debt was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

The reason was because at the age of 21 I was making $100k in a city where cost of living is below average. This equates to about $200,000/yr in New York City (Pull out a cost of living calculator to see what this is in your area). If I didn’t have this debt hanging over my head you can be sure I would’ve purchased a house, car, and plenty of “toys” that I could afford payments on, but realistically were too expensive.

Having this debt pushed me to work hard both in school and in my vocation because I knew that “I’m paying for this.” Nobody else was going to foot the bill here, and if I’m paying for it I might as well make it worth while. I ended up with a 4.0 in both my A.S. degrees, and a 4.0 in my B.S. as well. On top of that I attained around a dozen certifications, some of which consisted of 8 tests to achieve.

I wouldn’t say that I ever “got in deep” with debt, but a substantial, intimidating amount of debt was good for me as a young adult. It set my lifestyle on a good path and empowered me to be frugal in light of my substantial income. It made me “humble” enough to not use my income to show off, but rather to build wealth and “Get Rich Slowly.”

Did anyone talk to me about student debt/job prospects: Yes on both fronts. I was lucky that I started reading PF blogs during my first year of graduate school (I also graduated undergraduate debt-free), so I was aware of the debt I had; as far as job prospects, our program is really good about being up front and continually focuses on making us as marketable as possible. That said, I’m also trying to make myself marketable outside of academia (just in case…)

How I’m Dealing with My Debt: My stipend is liveable, since I split my expenses with my BF. Additionally, I have a side-hustle. Between the two I’m putting $300/month toward my interest-bearing student loans. I’ve paid off over $12,000 in a year and half (some from earlier savings) and I’m looking at being ~$16,000 by the end of this year.

Thank you for the story. I also made it through undergrad with no loans. And I lived frugally. But, like the writer, I got into trouble when I got to graduate school . I went to business school, which had a culture that I had never seen before – “we’ll all gradute making so much more money, let’s spend now”! That works for a lot of b-school students, but not all. *Plus*, I had a half-tuition scholarship. Woohoo! I could spend even more!

When I graduated, I did get a job making more than double my previous salary. And I paid the minimum on my student loans diligently for four years. But they didn’t go down very fast. And then I changed careers. I took a 40% pay cut. I had to extend my loans – I ended up paying them off in full 15 years after getting my MBA. That was 15 years of loans! And those payments were hard for the entire 15 years.

Was it worthwhile? Yes and no. I don’t regret the education, but I do regret spending more than I had to. I could have done so many things differently:
- pay far more than the minimum in those first four years
- take out only what I really needed (this would have saved at least 25% of the loans)
- make paying off the loans a higher priority

I’m so glad I made it without defaulting or letting them go any further. Whew! Now that they’re behind me, I couldn’t be happier. I can finally think about all of my other financial goals.

Yours and my story parallel right up until you go to grad school: grew up poor, did well in school, got scholarships for undergrad and graduated with a degree in Creative Writing and Psychology with no debt! I’m glad you’re happy now and hope you can chip away at your debt in chunks!

“I leave work at 5 p.m. every day and don’t need to think about it until the next morning. I don’t check email during my off hours. I don’t work in the evenings. I have pets, I am a hobby chef, I read novels. I think I would have enjoyed the tenure track, but I don’t need it to be happy.”

Gee there are some nasty comments for Honey. The way I see it, she is up against her (perhaps first) signifant life challenge as a grown woman – a marriage with challenges (and let’s be honest she’s not alone on that front), substantial debt and a reality gap between where she thought she’d be and where she is.

Just possibly this will be the making of her. I think her challenges will substantially be on lifestyle adjustments (i.e. slashing expenses) rather than chasing extra income. Cooking at home from scratch can be a cheap hobby and should be encouraged.

Honey, your husband is a handful. You need a plan – a plan for paying off your debt, securing YOUR future and yes you can do this while you love your flawed husband. Hope for the best and plan for the worst. How do I know? Because my husband is very similar and I still regularly wish to beat my head against a wall, but he’s a great dad, lover and friend. We seperated for a while but we were both miserable. He’s also a Phd in political science. Since I woke up and smelt the fiscal coffee about 5 years ago, I’ve gained a masters degree in public policy, worked my way through the non profit sector and now have a nice tenured position in government. I’ve also almost single handedly paid off app. $100,000 along the way. We are now well into our savings journey.

Sometimes you just need to get on with it and you will have to be the strong one. Jake may not get it, he may not have it in him. But you do need to stem the flow and challenge the risky areas of spending/financial loss. We closed a business for this reason and my husband has not had a full time position since.

Coming from the STEM side of academia, I never understood the financing behind higher degrees in many of the humanities. In STEM, it was pretty much the case that if your phD wasn’t fully funded (through research or teaching), you either (1) had no business being in the program and were likely to flunk out or (2) were studying something that was so obscure that it wouldn’t be useful after graduation. Either way, if the money was coming out of your pocket to be in grad school, you were probably making a bad financial decision.

So let me get this straight? You basically ruined your job prospectives because of a guy that, at the time, you had only been dating a year? And you had to make the sacrifices not him? You didn’t even consider moving to PA and having him get a job in the closest big city so you could see each other on weekends? That’s so irresponsible.

Also, I hate it when people use this line and blame the banks for not giving them information on the debt they signed paperwork for: “I also don’t recall a single time when I saw a total of how much I’d borrowed until my degree was almost complete.” This information is so easy to find out, that to say you had no idea again shows how irresponsible you were.

Your total student loan debt: Took out one $10,000 loan for living expenses during grad school. Had 20 years to pay it off. Paid it off in 4 years and 2 months.

Parents paid for books a few times and that’s it. I was responsible for my education and got scholarships, did work study, and saved money. My AA was fully paid for by the state since I was still in HS when I earned it.

What degree(s) you have: AA (’99), BA in philosophy (’02), MEd in early childhood ed (’04).

When you went to school: A highly-ranked community college while I was in HS, a private college, a state university.

Whether anyone talked to you about student debt or the job prospects in your field: No. That was my responsibility to research.

Whether the information you received about student loan debt or the job prospects in your field was accurate: I did my own research.

What you wish you had done differently/advice for others: Don’t make excuses for your own choices. And break up with that boyfriend you keep around. He’s bringing you down.

How you’re dealing with your debt: I had my debt paid off before I was 29. According to the “8 Money Ratios” book, student debt should be paid off ten years into your career if you expect to be able to retire. I did it, no problem. I feel very secure with my choices.

I had a full-ride (tuition, room, and board) to Northeastern University in Boston and studied Electrical Engineering. I was on internship half of the semesters (the school had a phenomenal coop program) and made enough money to pay living expenses and I also had some money from my parents that I could use as I saw fit since I didn’t need money for tuition. So, I obviously didn’t need loans.

I got married young – after my 3rd year of college, but my husband was blessed that his grandparents paid for his college tuition. On the other hand, we worked hard to have enough money to pay all our living expenses – I was on internship half the time, tutoring the rest of the time, he was a resident assistant (free rent!), research assistant, and a teaching assistant. Technically that wasn’t allowed as he was an international student, but somehow he got away with it.

He needed a PhD (to do research in biology), so we headed off to Michigan to get graduate degrees. I did apply for some jobs, but couldn’t find one and also had 0 interest in the automotive industry (hello, Michigan), so I went to get a PhD, too. We both had tuition remission and stipends, varying between 20-30k each depending on current funding. We didn’t take out any loans. We also had two little boys while working on our PhDs. I worked on my PhD in the evenings and naptimes. I realized I hated research, but getting 30k without needing to pay for childcare wasn’t bad. It took my 6 years to finish, but was probably worth it (financially, it worked out well since I was basically a stay-at-home mom for 4 of those years).

My husband is now a post-doc and we have 3 little boys and I am a SAHM. This is the first year that he has made more than 40k. However, we have no loans, we have 60k set aside for a house when he starts work as a professor (this is not wishful thinking, he already has one job offer for tenure track that we are mulling over), 15k in emergency funds, 20k in college savings for our kids, and 60k in retirement between the two of us. Not bad for perpetual students.

I made it through undergrad without any student loan debt, but racked up $33,000 in grad school. My grad school tuition was covered by a research position for 3 semesters, so I used the loans largely for living expenses. I thought having student loan debt was “normal” so I didn’t worry about it. My biggest financial regret is having the student loan debt (much of which was unnecessary). But, I worked really hard to get rid of that debt as quickly as possible. I have paid all of it off.

I think that Honey is in a bit of denial about the level of her debt and how it is going to affect her future choices. It is nice to work in a job that you love, but at this point she should be working in a job (or 2 or 3 jobs) where she can maximize her income to get rid of the debt. From her posts, I don’t get any sense of urgency about paying down the debt.

I like to think that people are allowed to work in a job they love at the cost of quickly paying off debt if that’s the path they choose.

You need to *choose* it (that is: make a conscious decision that you are going to take a longer repayment period, more interest, maybe a later retirement, in order to increase your quality of life). But it’s as valid a choice as deciding that what’s most important is depleting your debt load as quickly as possible.

It is possible that Honey is not facing up to the full facts about how her student loan debt will affect her future choices. But if she HAS soberly thought through the options, there’s nothing inherently wrong with her decision.

I agree that there is nothing wrong with making a choice to work in a job that you love compared to paying off debt more quickly. I am not sure whether or not Honey has really looked at those choices. I think part of the problem is that we tell ourselves that debt is “normal”, it is “ok”…as long as we can make the payments we can “afford it”. But that really isn’t true.We can’t afford it, and it affects us in more ways that we are aware of.

I applaud Honey for telling her story. I would be curious to know how long Honey’s repayment plan is for both her debt and her husband’s debt. I wonder if they have really sat down and said, this is going to be paid off in “x” number of years.

I graduated college in 2004 with a BS in German. I had about $26,000 in debt; which included 2 semesters abroad.

I knew when I graduated that I wouldn’t find a job using my degree. I knew I wouldn’t be teaching; I can’t stand teenagers and never bothered to get a teaching certificate. And German isn’t a language that needs a lot of translators. However, my father often said “it doesn’t matter what the degree is in, most employers want to see that you can stick with something for 4 years.”

I’m starting to think that my father was wrong, but I didn’t know that at the time.

As far as how I graduated with on $26,000 debt; I got lucky. I did a year and a half of PSEO (Post Secondary Enrollment option) in high school where the state paid for me to take college classes that fulfilled my high school graduation requirements. That meant I started college with a year of credits out of the way. I was salutatorian of my class, and got some scholarships through there. Also, my family was poor – and I got a lot of scholarships and government help from that.

Do I regret my degree? I can’t honestly say. I can’t imagine who I’d be if I hadn’t taken 4 language during college. It allowed me such freedom to explore and learn about myself. Honestly, I was a pretty naive teenager, it took me several years away from home for me to learn who I was and what I wanted out of life.

But also, learning doesn’t have to be contained by a college degree. Last December I graduated (again) with a AA in Accounting from the (now) local community college, a degree that I cash flowed by taking a couple courses a semester while working full time.

So my advice to others would be this; take advantage of whatever programs you can. Look for scholarships to help you; a $500 scholarship saves you $240 in interest (assuming 4% interest over 10 years) And if you need time to find yourself, that’s fine. But do it at a cheap community college instead of an expensive private one.

And some advice for parents; teach your children about compound interest. If your kid gets to college age and doesn’t realize how much paying interest sucks, you’ve failed as a parent. Research PSEO or Dual Credit options for your high school age children. Teach them how to ask the financial aid section of the college for help. Nag them about deadlines; role play how they’ll pay for college. Teaching your kids how to recognize when they need help and how to ask for it is probably one of the most valuable things you can teach your children.

I don’t mean to be a English language tyrant, but the term “begs the question” does not mean “raises the question.” It refers to an argument in which the conclusion is based on the premise that the conclusion must be true, or just simply based on a false premise. Example: Steve is trustworthy, because he told me he is.

I think it’s crazy how much students can get themselves into debt these days. When I went to University student loans were just starting really – I had relatively little student debt but it was still a burden and that despite working whilst at university.

These problems can and should encourage us to look at the alternatives – there comes a point when it’s a price not worth paying and with advances in technology you can often find the same education at least in terms of content online for minimal cost to free – the problem is then one of motivation and certification, but the content is there.

From a political angle too I think it’s getting a little crazy, governments persuade people to accept debt too easily.

Something went nutso when student loans started to cover “living expenses” instead of just tuition,fees, and books.

That was bad enough, but the “living costs” changed from being enough to live in a double dorm room and eat on campus, to covering apartments, groceries, gas, and the cars needed to commute from off campus. And the life of debt begins….

I graduated with a BA in Women’s Studies in 2007 with $22000 in loans. Over the next three years, I had that paid down to about $7000. For 2 of those years, I worked in a group home that paid me a stipend of about $750 a month plus housing, food, and medical coverage (and after 3 months, I received student loan repayment assistance from them which meant an extra $150/month to put towards loans). On paper, I was making next to nothing, but because I really had no bills beyond student loans (which were actually in an interest deferment period because I was making so little) I could make really large payments every month, and STILL afford to go on 3 day trips around the province every second month, and a 2 week vacation in Europe. I also volunteered at a women’s centre once a week during this time, which I was able to leverage into a job once I left the group home.

In 2010, I went back to do my MA in Women’s Studies (my plan was to become an academic, but I decided pretty quickly into my program that I preferred my experience in the work world to my experience of academia). I received funding, but it worked out to much less than I thought it was going to, and I ended up having to take out $12000 in loans. My tuition was covered for one of three semesters, and I had a TA position that covered my living expenses from September til April, and then found employment for the summer which covered my living expenses then, but I was still on the hook for 2 semesters of tuition. So, all in all, right now I have $16000 left to repay.

I was able to keep my loans relatively low by saving up from a part-time job in high school, and working my butt off every summer during university. My parents also helped me out by buying my books for me.

I found that it was actually kind of hard to get information about funding, tuition, and anything related to money from the people heading my MA program. I remember asking at our orientation about when we would get paid from our TA positions and exactly how much it would be, and they weren’t able to tell me that or who to contact in order to find out. Looking back, I definitely should have had that figured out before I even accepted the position.

My advice would be to definitely gain work or volunteer experience before going to graduate school. It will help focus your interests (even if it means being able to say ‘I definitely don’t want to do that’). In my case, the experience I was getting in order to enhance the research I would do in academia ended up being my calling.

And for the people who say don’t bother with the humanities… I think it depends on what you want to do. Working in the non-profit world, my MA in Women’s Studies has set me apart from other job candidates, and my current employer straight up told me that it was a factor in me being hired over other people with similar years of experience (not only that, I was hired within 3 weeks of graduating from my program). But I think it was really the combination of awesome work experience and graduate education that worked in my favour. If you’re going to go into the humanities, it’s imperative that you find some way to get experience in what you want to do, whether that’s through paid work or volunteering.

Undergrad: I lived at home for most of it. I spent 3 years at community college and 2 at the local University. I worked up to 5 jobs at a time and had been saving since I was 8 years old (did you know you could start working that young if it is in a family business – a great way to get an allowance) With a major in Biology I knew that I could only be somebody else’s flunky unless I went on to grad school

Dental School: In 2004 I went to one of the top dental schools in the country. It was private and across the country. My thought was if I’m going to have to pay for private school might as well do something really different; I had lived in the same county my entire life up to this point. All those years of working and saving came in handy here. I was able to pay for the first year’s tuition out of savings. I got a job tutoring and filing papers in admissions office to help get some spending money, but all of my other expenses were paid by loans.

4 years and 200K later I had my DMD. Luckily, I was able to consolidate my public loans and get a 2.5% interest rate. A rate so low that I’m not in a particular hurry to pay them back before I have to , especially when I still have the private loans.

By avoiding lifestyle inflation, I’m on track to pay off the student about 10 years after graduating. Note: It’ll be another 10 years for me to pay off the 350K it took to purchase my practice, but that’s another story.

Kate, you should submit a reader story about buying your practice! I don’t know anything about the dental industry and am sure it is fascinating. Do other medical professionals have to buy a practice, too?

You’d be amazed at the amount of money that doctors and dentists need for their practices and a lot of them try an maintain a certain high level life style too. It’s amazing that they have specific home loan programs for residents and “new” doctors. I work in the med center, so my loan officer told me to tell any doctors I know (the loan cap for houses was 1.5 million). Plus they easily get loans for buying into current practices, buying buildings and equipment if they start a new practice, and cars. I’m not surprised how much doctors and dentists can get into debt, especially if they want the image of the successful doctor. The assumption is that they will make tons of money and can easily pay it all off. Some do, but doctors are making less and less (although still a lot more than me).

I don’t have time this morning to read through all the comments, but wanted to say that while I’ve been pretty hard on Honey in her previous posts, I have a lot of empathy for her after reading this one (and I got through college with no debt- thanks to my grandmother and going to community and state college- so it’s not b/c I’m in the same situation.)
We need a better system as a community to help guide our young people in making decisions like this that will impact the rest of their lives. Ultimately, not helping the young to make wiser decisions at the time injures our entire society. Smart people make bad decisions, too… especially when they lack life experience.

I was fortunate enough to receive a full scholarship for my undergrad. I graduated with a BS in Finance in 2009. I am now working and pursuing my MBA part time. Since I never had to pay for school before, writing the check for my fall semester hurt! While I should be able to pay for my MBA without taking on any debt, I decided to submit the FAFSA for the first time this year. Seeing the amount they offered it’s no wonder people get into so much debt. My total tuition for the semester was around $4k and they offered me a financial aid package of over $10k! And this was just in federal loans.

My fiancé is a totally different story. We went to the same school and he graduated a couple years before me with a BS in Finance (and a BA in Economics- he constantly reminds me of his double major) However he also graduated with $75K is student loans! He had no idea what he was doing with student loans; all of his loans are private. Fortunately he did get a degree with good career prospects and hasn’t had to sacrifice much to make his student loan payments. Together we have paid off almost $10k in loans and it is a difficult process but I am thankful that he was able to go to college and get a good job, student loans or not. I know student loans are sometimes regarded as evil or as horrible shackles that prevent young people from being independent or successful and don’t get me wrong there are a lot of things my fiancé should have done differently but for a lot of people, student loans are the main reason they are successful today.

I’m lucky, in that I grew up in a middle class family. My parents highly valued education, and I knew from a young age that my choice was university or some type of education after high school and they would help out, or move out and get a job.

My first degree is a BSc in Computer Science that I completed in 4 years. I finished debt free between scholarships, some help from my parents, working part time, and 2 co-op semesters.

I took a year off to make money and save with a job I got from my co-op experience, that was in my field. It also was a chance to confirm I wanted to go back to school.

My second degree was a MSc in Computer Science – also debt free. It was paid through scholarships, TA-ships, money I saved during my year working, and some money from my Grandma (who had saved some for each of my sisters and myself to help us out).

My third degree (and current one) is a PhD in Computer science. It’s also debt-free. It’s completely paid for by scholarships. I save some extra money by picking up the odd TA-ship when they need an extra person (those on scholarships don’t get them automatically).

I’ve now completed 9 years of higher ed, and have 0 debt and about $50,000 in the bank (between RRSP, TFSA, and savings). I’m on track to finish in another 2 years without any debt.

However, I will point out that I did all my degrees in Canada – where a) it’s generally cheaper than the USA, and b) most grad programs will offer you some level of funding (and you should be concerned if they don’t). Every time I manage to get an extra TAship, I immediately put that money in savings. I know, in a year, I may no longer have funding, and so I’m making sure that I will have money to survive off of.

Honey’s questions:

Your total student loan debt – $0

What degree(s) you have – BSc, MSc, 1/2 to a PhD

When you went to school – Public Canadian Universities

Whether anyone talked to you about student debt or the job prospects in your field – Yep, and I did research on my own.

Whether the information you received about student loan debt or the job prospects in your field was accurate – Yes and no – it’s hard for people to be accurate when the job market keeps changing.

What you wish you had done differently/advice for others
1) Keep applying for scholarships. One scholarship, I applied for 5 years in a row (every year I was eligible) and only got it the last time.
2) Work – take co-ops, work part-time, take a year (or two) off. Having savings my first year when my take home was about $1100 a month was huge on making it way less stressful. I knew I wasn’t going to starve.

I suspect you went to the same university as some of my friends Funding in CS is quite plentiful compared to other faculties, but tuition costs are much higher too!

I would recommend that anyone considering doing graduate work learn how the funding game is played. If you can get external funding, schools will usually offer you internal scholarships as well.

Little know fact: Schools want applicants to bring cash of their own to the table. Granting agencies pay it to schools in a lump sum per year, and schools get to hold on to it — earning interest — until they dole it out in regular installments.

Not sure if it’s the same in the U.S., but it’s worth people looking in to.

BA in English, MFA in Writing. Work as a college administrator; taught freshman comp. I am basically Honey but decided not to go for the PhD.

Total student loan debt: 24K
Total free tuition used as a university employee: $72K

Whether anyone talked to you about student debt or the job prospects in your field and it was accurate: I considered that my responsibility to research, and had to make the decisions based on whether or not I was ultimately successful in that career or not.

I just want to say that THERE ARE WAYS to get your degree without borrowing for it. They suck and they take longer, but they exist. Working for the college, the GI Bill, 2 years at a community college, teaching assistantships, Teach for America, etc.

Also, I’m sorry to harsh on Honey when so many others do, but will say this to anyone considering a PhD to go into teaching: do not bother unless you are absolutely willing to move ANYWHERE for your first academic position. Honey seems to take it as a personal affront that there weren’t positions waiting in large cities, or that her grad school somehow lied about job placement rates. People, academia is like the army: you go where you’re posted. As you move up in rank, you can start making demands. And partners/spouses of academics, you will have to move to wherever or cripple your partner’s academic career. My husband is about to finish his PhD and I know it means we will be moving to Alaska or Nebraska or something, and that is the way it is. I am sorry for anyone who enters a PhD without being told that this is the case.

“do not bother unless you are absolutely willing to move ANYWHERE for your first academic position.”

The problem, Stephanie, is that Ph.D.s often take a very long time. When you are finished, you very well may be an entirely different person. When I first started at 22, I thought I would be willing to move anywhere for the first job. Two kids and one husband later, this is now not the case.

Plus the reality is that you are expected to move SEVERAL times and often for post-docs or 1 year positions. Your moving expenses are rarely paid.

It is a moot point for me. Frankly, my husband makes too much money. It would be absolutely foolish for him to quit the job he has had for over a decade. This would all be on the off chance that such a move would eventually land me the much sought after tenure track job. It might not.

And despite what others say, it is not advisable to live separate from your partner for long periods of time. This is especially true if you have children. In my opinion, that is one decision Honey got right. I don’t like that people are excoriating her for not sacrificing personal life for career. Such marriages oftentimes fail because of the distance.

So, while I agree with Stephanie’s idea in theory, it doesn’t work in practice. Life is complicated and people are not static.

You absolutely cannot “be a lawyer anywhere.” Each state requires that you either pass its bar exam OR that you have been in the ACTIVE Practice Of Law for, usually, at least 5 years. . . AND can prove it.

Honey did mention that her husband almost had a nervous breakdown taking one bar exam. Heaven forbid that the poor man should have to go through that again.

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Tracysays:

14 August 2012 at 11:44 am

So true. This is one of the most painful facts of life that we managed to willfully blind ourselves to/be misled about during most of our undergrad years and during the decision to go to grad school. Part of it was that the job market had actually been very good for biology research up until the early 2000s, and part of it was that we were being advised by faculty that had mostly been hired during the ‘boom’ years of the 60s and 70s, when higher ed was expanding like crazy. We didn’t expect to live exactly where we wanted to, but we sure as hell would’ve wanted to shoot ourselves in the head if we knew we’d be stuck where we ended up.

The year my dad graduated with a PhD in Achitecture history there were only two teaching positions open in the whole country. Sometimes you don’t have much choice so you have to deal with it or change plans.

I have no student loan debt. I graduated with BBA in 2000 (thank you mom and dad), an MBA in 2002 (thank you graduate assistantship), and am working on an MIS (thank you current employer).

No one talked to me about student loan debt or the job prospects in my field, but I chose a career that I knew would hire (Accounting/Information Systems).

In retrospect, I wish I had applied for more scholarships at a variety of schools.

I want to do the same for my child (pay for his education) so he already has a scholarship fund in place. My parents contribute to this instead of giving him toys at birthdays and Christmas. We have no debt as a family so we are able to do this.

I graduated in 2004 from undergrad. I did not have student loan debt and have not been to grad school yet. When I was in high school and college, what I’d been told about grad school was that if you were going to go to go get an MA or PhD, especially in the humanities, that you had to be an elite enough student to get it paid for by someone else, or you were just wasting your time and money. That stuck with me, and I think it’s still true today. If you aren’t competitive enough to get a scholarship or fellowship going in, how are you going to get a job coming out into a market that has 300 qualified applicants for every tenure track teaching position?

Also, most of my friends didn’t go to grad school right away. There are many more ways to figure our your life that don’t have huge opportunity costs (what you could have been making and saving) and actual costs (tuition, living expenses).

I went to undergrad as a traditional college student with my parents mostly supporting me in 2000-2003. Due to a variety of circumstances I chose to leave in 2003, thinking I would take a term off, get my S* together and return to school.

Instead I started working full time as an admin, and pretty soon it had been a few years. I returned to a different school in an entirely different program (accounting) which I thought was the worst subject ever back when I was 18. But this time I was on my own. I had scholarships & Pell grants but I still needed loans.

I ended up with about $35K in debt, however my first year of work I was making about 30% more than I did as an experienced admin. Now I’m well over double what I made and I will pay off my student loans in about 2 years.

In my case? It was a terrific decision. I borrowed some money to dramatically alter my future for the better. Had I been unable or unwilling to take on debt I would not have been able to complete my program.

I don’t believe that it’s necessarily important to study a “lucrative” subject. There is a great argument to be made for education for its own sake rather than purely technical/marketable skills. That being said, it’s important to do your research, and the level of thoughtfulness required to adequately figure out how much one can afford to borrow is probably difficult for the average 18 year old.

In 2003, my total student loan debt after a BA in Foreign Languages & Literatures was $20k.

I’m sure I received some cursory counseling through the student financial aid office at my school. My mom also warned me against taking out too many loans. However, there wasn’t anything saved for college (neither through my mom’s financial planning nor through my own 4 years of part time work through high school). However, even if someone had taken the time to counsel me thoroughly on the importance of keeping any debt at all to a minimum, I’m not sure I would have listened then. I was stubborn and really good at making excuses. I was a single mom. I needed to not have to work so much. I needed to go to school full time all the time so I could finish my degree on time (4 years). But I lived at home to keep costs down, my son’s father took care of his health insurance and child care costs, I still worked part time as a server. Yes – I needed to finish quickly to get a real job, I don’t think it would have hurt anything to work a little more, take fewer classes taking longer to finish school, and finishing with no debt.

I was always wary of credit cards, and while I used them, I used them sparingly. Credit card nightmares never visited me – thanks to a strong support system dedicated to making sure I finished school and a good bit of luck.

Still, with about 14K to go almost 10 years later, I wish I had been a little less concerned with the urgency of timing. My amounts are not nearly as staggering as those of some I’ve read about here or as high as many of my friends. Still, with an 11-year-old entering middle school, thoughts of his own college costs are looming.

Thanks to a recently implemented, aggressive debt repayment plan, my student loans will not factor in much longer.

I would advise any student to consider carefully how much debt to draw. There’s no guarantee of a job with a degree these days. College days are limited. If you can draw them out another year or two to eliminate the need for debt, do it.

I have a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and History and a Bachelor of Business Admin, I graduated in 2005 with $54000 in debt. I am still paying my student loans (feel like I will be forever) on repayment assistance.
No one talked to me about student debt, and I just wish I had spent my money more wisely. I always worked, but I used that money for non necessities like clothing and going out when I should have been saving it.
The job prospects in my field (accounting)are good, but I think people have a different perception of accounting than the reality. We don’t start off making really good money, we have to work our butts off and get even more education (and often go even farther into debt) above and beyond our bachelor degree to ever make a good amount of money.
I think we all need to teach our children about debt and especially how to choose a good career that will pay off the debt that they build up while they get the education for that career.

I “just” have my bachelors in accounting and consider my salary quite good. I make more than my lawyer husband and I spent 1/4 of the money to get my degree.

You absolutely do not need an advanced degree to get “good” accounting jobs. Maybe you need an MBA (MAYBE) if you’re on a corporate CFO track… but that sort of goes above & beyond “good” money and into “ridiculous” money.

Same here. I have a bachelors in accounting plus some extra hours of accounting classes so that I could sit for the CPA in Ohio. No MBA, but I do have my CPA. I make a little over $70k, not in managment, not in public accounting. Just an analyst at a large company. 40 hrs a week, 28 vacation days a year.
CAT it sounds to me like you don’t actually have enough accounting classes in your background to be a true accountant and that’s why your not making any money. You’re an over qualified clerk. You have to major and minor in accounting to be a true accountant.
Even without your CPA you can make decent money in accounting.

I had a choice when looking at colleges: my parents would pay for my tuition up to a point, beyond that it was up to me. I chose to go to a good state school instead of an out-of-state private school, and I’m so so so glad I did. I worked odd jobs throughout school, was an RA for free room and board, and took advantage of every scholarship and opportunity I could find. I graduated with a BA in English/Anthropology (useless!) in 4 years with no student loan debt.

And then I decided to go to grad school. I worked for 2 years to save up money for living expenses, which meant that I only took out loans to cover tuition. I graduated with about $25,000 in debt in 2009, which was a really crappy time to graduate. I took the first full-time job I could find and threw everything I had at that debt. I worked 7 days a week, ate rice and beans, and spent as little money as possible. I was able to pay it off in 2.5 years, and I’m glad I got that MA, but taking on that loan and then having to work so much to pay it off was a hard lesson.

I graduated in 2007 with a BS in Information Systems and about $25,000 in student loans. I luckily ended up with an internship my last semester which turned into a full time job when I graduated where I now make $70,000. I’m still paying off all of my student loans and the new car that I just had to have (and totally regret buying.)

The real story here is my younger sister. She graduated in 2009 with a BA in Fine Arts. After graduation she had well over $100,000 and absolutely no interest in art at all. She now works as a barista at a coffee shop and as a bartender for a banquet hall on the weekends and she is barely scraping together enough money to pay her student loans. She’s forced to live at home with my parents who really don’t have the means to give her more financial help than food, shelter, and car insurance. She has no health insurance and the whole thing just makes me sad. I’d love to help her, but I’m tackling my own debt.

I think your story is pretty common. My sister never looked into what her debt was amounting to or what job she would be able to get after college. Watching her struggle is brutal.

Although it might not be the bank’s responsibility to make it clear how screwed you might be when your loans come due, it would be nice if colleges did more to educate students about simple things like how interest compounds and how the decisions you make today can affect you later. I don’t think I learned any of that until after I saw the first bill.

Thanks to help from my father and working part time, I got my bachelor’s degree with no debt, but borrowed $20,000 for a master’s degree because I also was good at school and afraid to find a job in my field in a less than stellar economy (back in 1993). Totally understand that.

I paid off my student debt and helped my husband pay for his bachelor’s degree by working freelance jobs at night.

I make a good living now, own my own business, but honestly, I feel like that master’s degree was a total waste of money. It was a line on my resume that had nothing to do with the reason I got hired — and even less to do with how I make my living today.

I grew up with the idea that college education was the key to a good future, so more college education would mean a better future. Now I realize that what you major in and the work experience and connections you develop are far more valuable than the piece of paper.

Thanks for sharing your story. It is very helpful to me as I am a student having to figure out my own financial situation. For now I have a lot of scholarships helping me out, but I may not in the future. Thanks again for sharing!

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